“How can you be so heartless!” cried Miss Rachel, her eyes staring reproachfully at her sister. “I do want them; they’re brother’s children, and this is their rightful home. But I wish they wanted to stay. I’m sure they ran away because they didn’t like us. Do you think we were too harsh with them yesterday?”
“Perhaps so. At any rate, they have run away. I thought they were in the garden, but if so, they would have been found by now. Do you suppose they took an early train back to New York?”
“Oh, Abbie, how can you say so! Those two dear little mites alone in a great city! I can’t think it!”
“It’s better than thinking they are drowned in the pond.”
“Either is awful; and yet of course some such thing must have happened.”
The two ladies were on the verge of hysterics, and the servants, who had all been hunting for the children, were nonplussed. Pat had jumped on a horse, and galloped off to the brook which had so taken their fancy the day before, and Michael stood, with his hands in his pockets, wondering if he ought to drag the pond. Delia, the cook, had left the waiting breakfast and had come to join the anxious household.
“I’m thinkin’ they’re not far off,” she said; “why don’t ye blow a horn, now?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Miss Abbie; “try it, Michael.”
So Michael found an old dinner-horn that had hung unused in the barn for many years, and he blew resounding blasts.
But unfortunately, the babes in the woods were too far away to hear, and forgetful of all else they watched two squirrels, who, reassured by the children’s quiet, ran back and forth, and almost came right up to Dick and Dolly’s beckoning fingers.