"Yours, yours—our own little child! who has taken it away?"
"Nobody."
"Then where is it?"
"Asleep; didn't I tell you so?"
Mrs. Allen rushed into the kitchen and searched it in every corner. The smoke had cleared away, and she discovered tracks of a small, naked foot in the loose snow that had drifted into the room. Where was the child? what could have happened? Mrs. Allen rushed distractedly into the street, just as the neighbor whom she had been in search of drove up with a load of wood on his sled.
"Hello! what's the matter, Mrs. Allen?" he called out, as she came toward the gate, pale as death, and wringing her hands.
"Our baby—my little grandchild—it is gone!"
The man stopped and emitted a low whistle.
"So there was something in all that talk," he muttered, "hard as I stood up for her."
"I only left to run down to your house—we hadn't another armful of wood. When I came back, the outdoor was open, the room full of smoke, and she all alone! Oh, God help me, what can I do!"