"You say you have looked carefully in the garden?" he continued to Briggs.
"All over it, sir; in every corner," she replied.
"All the same, we had better do it again," he said. "It is just possible that he may have escaped you the first time. No, mother, you stay here," he said decidedly, as Granny rose with the evident intention of accompanying him. "You will only tire yourself for no purpose. If he is to be found in the garden, you may rest assured that I shall find him and bring him to you as soon as possible. Just stay here quietly with Miss Baggerley, and don't worry yourself."
Undoubtedly a very good piece of advice, this last, but one that poor Granny in her nervous state of mind found very difficult to follow.
"It is so strange, so very strange!" she said, unhappily. "I cannot understand it at all; I only pray that no accident may have happened to the child. I should have thought Briggs would have taken greater precautions if she intended to leave him alone for that time. I had a higher opinion of her, I had indeed.
"She is much to blame," she added, smoothing with a nervous little movement the curls she wore in the old fashion on each side of her face.
After this she continued her knitting, but she was plainly too restless and ill at ease to fix her attention on her work.
"My dear," she said in a minute, "it has just struck me that it would be a good thing if we were together to look upstairs; Briggs may not have searched there thoroughly. Do you not think that it would be a good plan if we were to go?"
I should have liked to answer in the negative, for she was not strong, and a little exertion soon fatigued her. But I saw that it would be a real relief to her in her anxiety to be doing something. So I did not follow my inclination, and together we went slowly upstairs, Granny leaning on my arm, in a sweet, clinging way,—a way that was all her own.
Arrived upstairs, we went conscientiously from room to room, but in vain. No success attended our efforts.