“No; he has not been there all day.” Polly started as if she had been stabbed.
“Then where is he?” cried Mrs. Bright, looking anxiously round. “Is he up-stairs, Polly?” The miserable girl shook her head. Her fears for the baby had made her quite forget her little brother, and it now flashed across her mind that she had not passed him in the lane, when she had retraced her steps to the cottage. Where could he have gone, where could he be now?
Mrs. Bright had endured much, but her cup seemed now to overflow. She walked close up to Polly, laid a heavy grasp upon her shoulder, and said, in a tone which the girl remembered to her dying day, “When was your brother last with you?”
“About two hours ago, just before you returned home,” faltered Polly.
“And where did you leave him?”
“In the lane, near the high-road.”
“Go and find him,” said the mother, between her clenched teeth, “or never let me set eyes on you again!”
Polly rushed out of the cottage, and began her anxious search up and down the lane, by the hedge, in the ditch, along the road, asking every person that she met, and from every one receiving the same disheartening answer. No one had seen the boy, no one could think what had become of him. He was too young to have wandered far; had he run towards the road, he must have been met by Polly—if the other way, he must have been seen by his mother; he could not have got over the hedge; there was no possibility of his having lost his way. Many neighbours joined in the search; many pitied the unhappy mother, but she was less to be pitied than Polly.