"He must be pursued," said Mrs. Mudge, with vehemence, "I'll have him
back if it costs me twenty dollars. I'll tell you what, husband," she
exclaimed, with a sudden light breaking in upon her, "if there's anybody
in this house knows where he's gone, it is Aunt Lucy Lee. Only last week
I caught her knitting him a pair of stockings. I might have known what
it meant if I hadn't been a fool."

"Ha, ha! So you might, if you hadn't been a fool!" echoed a mocking
voice.

Turning with sudden anger, Mrs. Mudge beheld the face of the crazy girl
peering up at her from below.

This turned her thoughts into a different channel.

"I'll teach you what I am," she exclaimed, wrathfully descending the
stairs more rapidly than she had mounted them, "and if you know anything
about the little scamp, I'll have it out of you."

The girl narrowly succeeded in eluding the grasp of her pursuer. But,
alas! for Mrs. Mudge. In her impetuosity she lost her footing, and fell
backward into a pail of water which had been brought up the night before
and set in the entry for purposes of ablution. More wrathful than ever,
Mrs. Mudge bounced into her room and sat down in her dripping garments
in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. As for Paul, she felt a personal
dislike for him, and was not sorry on some accounts to have him out of
the house. The knowledge, however, that he had in a manner defied her
authority by running away, filled her with an earnest desire to get him
back, if only to prove that it was not to be defied with impunity.