CHAPTER XII

LOST IN A FOG

FOR a few minutes she did not realize it, but she pressed after the boys in the direction in which she thought they had gone. She was too shy to call after them; too frightened and bewildered to speak to any passer-by. Stories of children being kidnapped came into her mind. Dawn had said burglars and pickpockets were about; if she spoke, they might offer to take her home, and then lead her away to rob her or kill her. An overwhelming sense of terror seized her, she fancied some one caught hold of her; and turning round, she ran as if for her life away from the possible pickpocket. The fog seemed to get thicker, she could not see a few feet in front of her, and at last she stood still trying to collect her thoughts.

"I don't know where I am, or what I'm to do," she said to herself. "I couldn't find a cab if I wanted one, and I couldn't drive in a cab alone, I should die of fright. The cabman would be drunk; Puggy said they always were. But I'm sure God will take care of me; I mustn't be frightened. I'll say my text:

"'What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.'

"I will trust God to take care of me. I wish I was near a shop; they seem to have all gone away. Perhaps if I went up to a house and knocked at the door, they would tell me what to do."

She was trying hard to be cool and brave; and, gathering all her courage together, she felt her way to the nearest doorstep; three steps she mounted, and then dimly through the fog she saw a bell. This she pulled, and waited in trepidation till some one came. The some one proved to be a manservant, and in opening the door he seemed to let out a flood of light and warmth.

But as Christina looked up at him her heart failed her. He could see her less plainly than she could see him, and his voice was irate as he exclaimed:

"One of you begging brats again! How dare you touch the bell! Is my time to be taken up by answering the door to such as you!"

Christina was dumb; the door was slammed violently in her face, and sitting down on the step she gave way to a few tears.

"What am I to do? The houses are no good, and the people aren't, for I can't see them, and I don't know where the cabs are, or where I am!"

Then she thought she might speak to a lady if one passed by, but none seemed to come in her direction. Two loud-voiced girls passed her certainly, but their tones were not those of ladies, and this Christina knew instinctively.

"I s'pose," she said sorrowfully to herself, "that God is punishing me for having come out without Blanche. My conscience was right after all! And now the very worst has happened to me, and I shall never be found, and I shall be lost for ever!"

She felt cold and miserable; the fog got down her throat and made her cough. She wondered vaguely why she did not feel more frightened, and walked along the pavement with tired lagging steps.

"I wonder if it will ever get light again!" she said to herself, and then the inspiration seized her to take her stand under one of the electric lamps that edged the street at intervals.

"Perhaps I shall be able to see the people's faces better, and if they aren't all burglars, I might ask some one to help me!"

She had hardly taken her stand under the lamp before some one did come by whom she recognized at once. It was the old gentleman who had spoken to her in the picture gallery. In an instant she darted forward and touched his arm timidly.

"Please, I'm lost; do help me."

"Eh? What! Lost? No begging tricks! Why, bless my soul, it's my little friend who ran away from the pictures and me!"

"Yes; I've lost the boys, and I can't find my way home; will you help me?"

"Can't find your way home? Delightful! I'm as dull as ditch water to-day, you shall come home with me and cheer me up. Have you had your tea? I have not. Come along, come along, my house is not far from here. We'll send you home when we've done with you."

He took her hand in his. Christina followed him happily, till a sudden fear seized her.

"Please, don't mind my asking you, but you are not a burglar or a pickpocket, are you? You wouldn't rob me, would you? I—I don't know anybody in London, and Puggy and Dawn tell me such dreadful stories!"

The old gentleman laughed huskily. She went on with increasing nervousness:

"If you would take me back to our hotel, I should like it best; for, you see, the boys will be looking for me."

[Illustration: "Eh! What, lost?"]

"All in good time. Here we are! You must come in and see my old lady and then you will know why I was moon-struck over that dismal picture."

He had stopped at one of the houses in the street, inserted a latchkey into the door, and then took Christina up a steep flight of stairs.

"Now," he said, ushering her into a small drawing-room that was only lighted by a flickering fire, "here is my good wife. She can't see you in this fog, and she couldn't if it was bright sunshine, for she is quite blind, so she will take my word for it when I tell her that you are a very pretty little lady with eyes like our Minnie's. Come and shake hands with her."

Christina crossed the room timidly. Seated in an armchair by the fire was a very sweet-looking old lady. She was knitting a scarf, and had just laid down her work to listen to her husband's voice. "Very glad to see you, dear, or—I should say—to have you here, as I can't see any one. It is not often we have little visitors. How did you meet her, Ted?"

"Looking at a picture. Ah, dear! Don't remind me of it. Just a picture of ourselves a few years later! And then she ran away from me, and then we met again in the streets, and she told me she was lost. Lost in London! I wonder how many loot souls London is responsible for!"

The old gentleman took off his hat and sat down heavily on a chair. Christina looked at him in wonder, then she laid her little hand softly on the old lady's withered one.

"I'm not quite lost, because I know the name of our hotel, and any one will take me there, won't they? It's this dreadful fog. I couldn't see the boys any more."

"Ted dear, ring the bell. Chivers will bring up tea. You must stay and have some tea, little girl, and then my husband will take you home. He wants cheering up; but he is not always so gloomy as this!"

Christina stayed to tea. She did not see what else she could do, and she confided to the old couple a good deal concerning herself and the boys.

She heard from the old lady that her name was Bolland, and that she and her husband had lived in London for fifty years, only going away from it sometimes for change of air. Mr. Bolland had been once an artist himself, but rheumatism had crippled his hands and limbs so badly that for some years he had not been able to touch a paint brush.

"And where is your little girl?" Christina asked. "The little girl something like me?"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Bolland with a sigh. "She's in Heaven; she died when she was twelve years old. I've often thought that if she had lived, she would have brightened our life now, wouldn't she, Ted? Show the little girl your picture of her. She'd like to see our Minnie."

Mr. Bolland left the room and returned with a large picture under his arm. It was a pretty portrait: a little girl in white muslin frock with a string of coral beads round her neck. Christina gazed at it admiringly.

"Yes," said Mr. Bolland, looking at her earnestly, "you've the same eyes, my dear, and you say the things Minnie used to say. Why when she lay dying she looked up at me, 'Father, I'm sorry to leave you, but so glad to go to Jesus,' she said."

He turned away and cleared his throat. Mrs. Bolland took hold of Christina's hand.

"Will you come and see us another day?" she asked gently. "Do you think you would be allowed to? We are very lonely old people, and it is such a treat to hear a little child's voice."

"I'll ask father, and perhaps I could bring Puggy and Dawn with me."

"Are they your dogs?"

Christina laughed merrily.

"No, they're boys. We're called the United Kingdom. Puggy is England, and Dawn is Ireland, and I'm Scotland. Dawn is named after the picture we saw to-day."

"I'll take you to your hotel," said Mr. Bolland. "We won't have a cab. The fog is clearing, and it is not far from here."

So Christina wished Mrs. Bolland good-bye, and promised her she would come again if she could, and then taking hold of Mr. Bolland's hand, she was piloted across several streets, and finally reached the hotel just at the time when her father, with a very worried face, was making inquiries about her in the entrance hall.

It appeared that neither Puggy nor Dawn had returned. Mr. Maclahan thanked the old gentleman warmly for bringing his little daughter back. He took her up at once to their private sitting-room, where her stepmother was having a cup of tea.

"It is really most culpable of Blanche to let these three children go out alone," said Mr. Maclahan sharply.

"Yes," his wife responded, "I suppose it is; but Puggy can generally be trusted to look after himself."

"I don't doubt that, but he cannot be trusted to look after Christina."

"Don't be hard on him. Tina seems the most capable of the three, for she has come back first."

"I expect," said Christina with anxious eyes, "that they're looking for me all this time. We lost each other in the fog. They got in front of me, and I lost them."

Mr. Maclahan left the room.

"Come here and tell me what you have been doing," said Mrs. Maclahan to her little stepdaughter.

Christina gave a very careful and truthful account of herself.

"Of course they ought to have looked after you better. But boys will be boys. I'm afraid your father will be very angry with Puggy!"

"May I go and see that old lady and gentleman again?" asked Christina timidly.

"You had better ask your father. I should think it would be a very odd proceeding. We do not know them, though I believe Mr. Bolland was an R.A. once. Ask Dawn's father if he knows him. And now go to Connie, and stay with her."

Christina left the room with relief. Though her stepmother was kind to her, she was not sympathetic; the little girl was never quite at ease when with her. She felt she was in the way, and that Mrs. Maclahan only tolerated her presence. And Mrs. Maclahan made no secret of her preference for the boys. She did not understand Christina, and she felt indifferent towards her. Beyond seeing that she was educated, fed and clothed, her stepmother had little to do with her, and it was to her father that Christina turned with the assurance of being welcome. Mr. Maclahan was taking an increasing interest in his little daughter, and her love of books was a great bond of union between them.

Half an hour afterwards the boys returned. They were indignant instead of relieved to find Christina safely at home.

"What did you run away from us for, you little stupid!" exclaimed Puggy. "A nice hunt we have had for you!"

"And all the policemen in London are looking for you," asserted Dawn. "We did the thing properly I can tell you! We offered £500 reward for whoever would find you."

"Oh!" gasped Christina. "Where could you get five hundred pounds?"

"Oh, your father would give that and a good deal more to get you back," said Dawn coolly. "Why, dad thinks me worth more than a thousand pounds, I know he does! And if I was put up for sale, I dare say I'd fetch more!"

Puggy eyed him with scorn.

"You'd only be bought by silly old ladies who go in for lapdogs. Your curls would keep off any sensible man from owning you!"

Dawn douched his fists.

"Now come, we'll have it out! I've been longing to give you a good crack across your head ever since you told me I was a penniless Irishman!"

"I never called you a man at all!" cried Puggy, squaring his shoulders. "You're a long-haired mongrel, that's what you are!"

Dawn flew like a little tiger upon Puggy, but Christina flung herself between them.

"You shan't fight, you mustn't!" she cried. "Why, this is the first day we've met. Oh, do be good boys, and tell me what you've been doing!"

Dawn began to laugh.

"We'll put it off," he said with a knowing nod at Puggy. "I want to tell where we've been. Such a lark, Tina; I took Puggy to Scotland Yard. You've never been there I know."

"Does it belong to Scotland?" asked Christina. "I ought to know about it I expect!"

"I don't know what it has to do with Scotland, but the cleverest policemen live in it; and if anything is lost, they take it there. Dad lost his best umbrella in a train, and he took me there, and we got it again."

"Would they have taken me there?" questioned Christina anxiously.

"No," interrupted Puggy, "I told him they wouldn't. I know London as well as Dawn does, and if any one is found wandering about the streets with no home, they're taken straight off to prison by the police, and made to sleep there all night!"

"Oh!" gasped Christina. "Just suppose a policeman had caught hold of me! How thankful I am he didn't!"

"Such fun!" went on Dawn with a chuckle. "Puggy got a shove from some one in the fog and he hit him in the face, and it was a bobby! We flew for our lives, and then we went to Scotland Yard."

"They'd just brought a huge bunch of keys in," put in Puggy, "and they were quite interested about you. We made up a long story about you. We told them you were the daughter of a millionaire, that we fancied you had been kidnapped in the fog for the sake of your dress and jewellery; we told them bills were going to be printed about you, and if they wished to get the reward, they'd better be quick and find you."

"I told them," said Dawn importantly, "that my father was painting a picture of you which was going to be put in the Academy, so that made them think you were very grand indeed. But then they began to want to know too much, and asked us so many questions that we got tired and came away."

The children were talking together in the lounge of the hotel. They were interrupted now by the appearance of Mr. Maclahan, who gave both boys a sharp scolding, and told Dawn he had better go home.

"Yes," he said, shaking back his curls with a saucy gesture, "and I shall invite Tina to spend the day with me, and then get dad to scold her well, and send her home without any tea."

"Do let Dawn stay to tea, father," Christina begged. "I've had mine out, but he has had none."

But Dawn was already flying down the broad staircase. Looking up when he reached the bottom, he waved his cap.

"Good-bye, you proper people. I like tea with dad better than with the King himself! And I'll come round and see you to-morrow Tina!"