The note was plainly enough written and to the point:
"Stay quiet where you are and you'll soon be set free. Try to run away and you'll meet big trouble."
There was no signature and the handwriting was unknown: and Dorothy was still blankly gazing at it when it was snatched from her hand, the woman had again disappeared, and a huge mastiff had come around the corner of the cottage, to seat himself upon the doorstep beside her. His attentions might have been friendly; but Dorothy was afraid of dogs, and shrank from this one into the smallest space possible, while there fluttered down over her shoulder the note that had been seized. There was now pinned to it a scrap of paper on which were scrawled three words:
Disappointed, Mrs. Chester had stepped back into her little hall, and the postman with the detective followed. Then they went further still and settled themselves in the parlor, as if come for a prolonged stay. To the detective's inquiry whether the missing Dorothy had recently met any strangers, made acquaintances who might be able to furnish some clew to her present whereabouts--as friends of longer standing had not been able--the mother answered: "No. She was always at home or in the immediate neighborhood."
But conquering her timidity, the country-woman now interrupted:
"Wait a minute. Mabel was here yesterday, wasn't she?"
"Why, yes. She came home with my little girl from Sunday school and spent part of the day. Why she did not stay longer I don't know. What of it?" returned mother Martha, drearily.
"She didn't stay longer because she was sent home. I was there and I noticed what a good-natured child she was not to get mad about it. She told her mother that Dorothy had a gentleman caller and had to see him on business. We both laughed over it, 'cause 'twas so grown-up an' old-fashioned like. An', sister, she said as how city children didn't scarce have any childhood, they begun to be beauin' each other round so early. We _laughed_, but still, I thought 'twas a pity, for I like little girls to stay such, long as they can."
"Nonsense! My Dorothy is--was the simplest child in the world. A gentleman caller--the idea is ridiculous!" cried Mrs. Chester, indignantly, and poor Mrs. Jones felt herself snubbed and wished that she had held her tongue.