"Oh, poor little Molly," she said to herself.

"How dreadfully she will be crying! What shall I do ?" Two or three ideas struck her.

Should she go down one of the staircases which every now and then she came upon, and find her way out of the palace, and down in the street try to call a cab to take her back to the hotel?
But she had no money with her, and no idea what a cab would cost.
And she was frightened of strange cabmen, and by no means sure that she could intelligibly explain the address.

Besides this, she could not bear to go home without them all, feeling certain that they would not desert the palace till they had searched every corner for her.
"If I could but be sure of any place they _must_ pass," she said to herself, with her good sense reviving; "it would be the best way to wait there till they come." She jumped up again.

"The door out!" she exclaimed.