But at the doorway a soldier stopped her.
"I live here," said Trot, "so it's all right to let
me in. The King has given me a room."
"Well, he has taken it back again," was the soldier's
reply. "His Majesty's orders are to turn you away if you
attempt to enter. I am also ordered to forbid the boy,
your companion, to again enter the King's castle."
"How 'bout Cap'n Bill?" she inquired.
"Why, it seems he has mysteriously disappeared,"
replied the soldier, shaking his head ominously. "Where
he has gone to, I can't make out, but I can assure you he
is no longer in this castle. I'm sorry, little girl, to
disappoint you. Don't blame me; I must obey my master's
orders."
Now, all her life Trot had been accustomed to depend on
Cap'n Bill, so when this good friend was suddenly taken
from her she felt very miserable and forlorn indeed. She
was brave enough not to cry before the soldier, or even
to let him see her grief and anxiety, but after she was
turned away from the castle she sought a quiet bench in
the garden and for a time sobbed as if her heart would
break.
It was Button-Bright who found her, at last, just as
the sun had set and the shades of evening were falling.
He also had been turned away from the King's castle, when
he tried to enter it, and in the park he came across
Trot.
"Never mind," said the boy. "We can find a place to
sleep."
"I want Cap'n Bill," wailed the girl.
"Well, so do I," was the reply. "But we haven't got
him. Where do you s'pose he is, Trot?
"I don't s'pose anything. He's gone, an' that's all I
know 'bout it."
|