“there is a great fuss made about it all,” said polly.

this was her remark when her father left the pleasant picnic dinner and drove away over the moor in search of flower.

“there is a great fuss made over it all. what is flower more than any other girl? why should she rule us all, and try to make things uncomfortable for us? no, david, you need not look at me like that. if flower has got silly australian notions in her head, she had better get rid of them as fast as possible. she is living with english people now, and english people all the world over won’t put up with nonsense.”

“it isn’t flower’s ways i mean,” said david. “her ways and her thoughts aren’t much, but it’s—it’s when she gets[pg 109] into a passion. there’s no use talking about it—you have done it now, polly!—but flower’s passions are awful.”

david’s eyes filled slowly with tears.

“oh, you are a cry-baby,” said polly. she knew she was making herself disagreeable all round. in her heart she admired and even loved david; but nothing would induce her to say she was sorry for any part she had taken in flower’s disappearance.

“everything is as tiresome as possible,” she said, addressing her special ally, maggie. “there, mag, you need not stare at me. your brain will get as small as ever again if you don’t take care, and i know staring in that stupid way you have is particularly weakening to the brain. you had better help george to pack up, for i suppose nell is right, and we must all begin to think of getting home. oh, dear, what a worry it is to have to put up with the whims of other people. yes, i understand at last why father hesitated to allow the strangers to come here.”

“i wouldn’t grumble any more, if i were you, polly,” said helen. “see how miserable david looks. i do hope father will soon find flower. i did not know that david was so very fond of her.”

“david is nervous,” retorted polly, shortly. then she turned to and packed in a vigorous manner, and very soon after the little party started on their return walk home. it was decidedly a dull walk. polly’s gay spirits were fitful and forced; the rest of the party did not attempt to enjoy themselves. david lagged quite behind the others; and poor maggie confided to george that somehow or other, she could not tell why, they were all turning their eyes reproachful-like on her. the sun had gone in now in the heavens, and the children, who had no sunshine in their hearts just then, had a vivid consciousness that it was late autumn, and that the summer was quite at an end.

as they neared the rise in the moor which hid sleepy hollow from view, david suddenly changed his position from the rear to the van. as they approached the house he stooped down, picked up a small piece of paper, looked at it, uttered a cry of fear and recognition, and ran off as fast as ever he could to the house.

“what a queer boy david is!” was on polly’s lips; but she could scarcely say the words before he came out again. his face was deadly white, he shook all over, and the words he tried to say only trembled on his lips.

“what is it, david?” said the twins, running up to him.

“she’ll believe me now,” said david.

he panted violently, his teeth chattered.

“oh! david, you frighten us! what can be the matter? polly, come here! nell, come and tell us what is the matter with david.”

the elder girls, and the rest of the children, collected in the porch. polly, the tallest of all, looked over the heads of[pg 110] the others. she caught sight of david’s face, and a sudden pain, a queer sense of fear, and the awakening of a late remorse, filled her breast.

“what is it, david?” she asked, with the others; but her voice shook, and was scarcely audible.

“she’s done it!” said david. “the baby’s gone! it’s flower! she was in one of her passions, and she has taken the baby away. i said she wasn’t like other girls. nurse thinks perhaps the baby’ll die. what is it?—oh, polly! what is it!” for polly had given one short scream, and, pushing david and every one aside, rushed wildly into the house.

she did not hear the others calling after her; she heard nothing but a surging as of great waves in her ears, and david’s words echoing along the passages and up the stairs “perhaps the baby will die!” she did not see her father, who held out his arms to detain her. she pushed alice aside without knowing that she touched her. in a twinkling she was at the nursery door; in a twinkling she was kneeling by the empty cot, and clasping the little frilled pillow on which baby’s head used to rest passionately to her lips.

“it’s true, then!” she gasped, at last. “i know now what david meant; i know now why he warned me. oh nursie! nursie! it’s my fault!”

“no, no, my darling!” said nurse; “it’s that dreadful young lady. but she’ll bring her back. sure, what else could she do, lovey? she’ll bring the little one back, and, by the blessing of the good god, she’ll be none the worse for this. don’t take on so, miss polly! don’t look like that, dear! why, your looks fairly scare me.”

“i’ll be better in a minute,” said polly. “this is no time for feelings. i’ll be quiet in a minute. have you got any cold water? there’s such a horrid loud noise in my ears.”

she rushed across the room, poured a quantity of water into a basin, and laved her face and head.

“now i can think,” she said. “what did flower do, nurse? tell me everything; tell me in very few words, please, for there isn’t a moment—there isn’t half a moment—to lose.”

“it was this way, dear: she came into the room, and took baby into her arms, and asked for some dinner. she didn’t seem no way taken with baby at first, but when i told her how much you loved our little miss pearl, she asked me to give her to her quite greedy-like, and ordered me to fetch some dinner for herself, for she was starving, she said. i offered that alice should bring it; but no, she was all that i should choose something as would tempt her appetite, and she coaxed with that pretty way she have, and i went down to the kitchen myself to please her. i’ll never forgive myself, never, to the longest day i live. i wasn’t ten minutes gone, but when i come back with a nice little tray of curry, and some custard pie, miss flower and the baby were away. that’s all—they hasn’t been seen since.”[pg 111]

“how long ago is that, nurse?”

“i couldn’t rightly tell you, dearie—maybe two hours back. i ran all round the moor anywhere near, and so did every servant in the house, but since the doctor come in they has done the thing properly. now where are you going, miss polly, love?”

“to my father. i wish this horrid noise wouldn’t go on in my head. don’t worry me, nurse. i know it was my fault. i wouldn’t listen to the warning, and i would provoke her, but don’t scold me now until i have done my work.”

polly rushed downstairs.

“where’s father?” she asked of bunny, who was sobbing violently, and clinging in a frantic manner to firefly’s skirts.

“i—i don’t know. he’s out.”

“he’s away on the moor,” said fly. “polly, are you really anxious about baby pearl?”

“i have no time to be anxious,” said polly. “i must find her first. i’ll tell you then if i’m anxious. where’s nell, where are the twins?”

“on the moor; they all went out with father.”

“which moor, the south or peg-top?”

“i think the south moor.”

“all right, i’m going out too. what’s the matter, fly? oh, you’re not to come.”

“please, please, it’s so horrid in the house, and bunny does make my dress so soppy with crying into it.”

“you’re not to come. you are to stay here and do your best, your very best, for father and the others when they come home. if they don’t meet me, say i’ve gone to look for baby and for flower. i’ll come back when i’ve found them. if they find baby and flower, they might ask to have the church bells rung, then i’ll know. don’t stare at me like that, fly; it was my fault, so i must search until i find them.”

polly ran out of the house and down the lawn. once again she was out on the moor. the great solitary commons stretched to right and left; they were everywhere, they filled the whole horizon, except just where sleepy hollow lay, with its belt of trees, its cultivated gardens, and just beyond the little village and the church with the square, gray tower. there was a great lump in polly’s throat, and a mist before her eyes. the dreadful beating was still going on in her heart, and the surging, ceaseless waves of sound in her ears.

suddenly she fell on her knees.

“please, god, give me back little pearl. please, god, save little pearl. i don’t want anything else; i don’t even want father to forgive me, if you will save little pearl.”

most earnest prayers bring a sense of comfort, and polly did not feel quite so lonely when she stood again on her feet, with the bracken and the fern all round her.

she tried hard now to collect her thoughts; she made a valiant effort to feel calm and reasonable.[pg 112]

“i can do nothing if i get so excited,” she said to herself. “i must just fight with my anxious spirit. my heart must stay quiet, for my brain has got to work now. let me see! where has flower taken baby? father and nell and the others are all searching the south moor, so i will go on to peg-top. i will walk slowly, and i will look behind every clump of trees, and i will call flower’s name now and then; for i am sure, i am quite, quite sure that, however dreadful her passion may have been, if flower is the least like me, she will be dreadfully sorry by now—dreadfully sorry and dreadfully frightened—so if she hears me calling she will be sure to answer. oh, dear! oh, dear! here is my heart speaking again, and my head is in a whirl, and the noises are coming back into my ears. oh! how fearfully i hate flower! how could she, how could she have taken our darling little baby away? and yet—and yet i think i’d forgive flower; i think i’d try to love her; i think i’d even tell her that i was the one who had done most wrong; i think i’d even go on my knees and beg flower’s pardon, if only i could hold baby to my heart again!”

by this time polly was crying bitterly. these tears did the poor child good, relieving the pressure on her brain, and enabling her to think calmly and coherently. while this tempest of grief, however, effected these good results, it certainly did not improve her powers of observation; the fast-flowing tears blinded her eyes, and she stumbled along, completely forgetting the dangerous and uneven character of the ground over which she walked.

it was now growing dusk, and the dim light also added to poor polly’s dangers. peg-top moor had many tracks leading in all directions. polly knew several of these, and where they led, but she had now left all the beaten paths, and the consequence was that she presently found herself uttering a sharp and frightened cry, and discovered that she had fallen down a fairly steep descent. she was slightly stunned by her fall, and for a moment or two did not attempt to move. then a dull pain in her ankle caused her to put her hand to it, and to struggle giddily to a sitting position.

“i’ll be able to stand in a minute,” she said to herself; and she pressed her hand to her forehead, and struggled bravely against the surging, waving sounds which had returned to her head.

“i can’t sit here!” she murmured; and she tried to get to her feet.

in vain!—a sharp agony brought her, trembling and almost fainting, once more to a sitting posture. what was she to do?—how was she now to find flower and the baby? she was alone on the moor, unable to stir. perhaps her ankle was broken; certainly, it was sprained very badly.