Gypsy turned very pale.
"Where are they?" persisted Tom. And just then her mother came out from the parlor.
"Why, Gypsy, where are the children?"
"I'm afraid Joy didn't know the way," said Gypsy, slowly.
"Did you let her come home alone?"
"Yes'm. She was tired of the chestnuts, and Winnie fell into the ditch. Oh, mother!"
Mrs. Breynton did not say one word. She began to put on her things very fast, and Tom hurried up to the store for his father. They hunted everywhere, through the fields and in the village; they inquired of every shop-keeper and every passer, but no one had seen a girl in black, with a little boy. There were plenty of girls, and an abundance of little boys to be found at a great variety of places, but most of the girls wore green-checked dresses, and the boys were in ragged jackets. Gypsy retraced every step of the way carefully from the roadside to the chestnut-trees. Mr. Jonathan Jones, delighted that he had actually caught somebody on his plowed land, came running down with a terrible scolding on his lips. But when he saw Gypsy's utterly wretched face and heard her story, he helped her instead to search the chestnut grove and the surrounding fields all over. But there was not a flutter of Joy's black dress, not an echo of Winnie's cry. The sunset was fading fast in the west, long shadows were slanting down the valley, and the blaze of the maples was growing faint. On the mountains it was quite blotted out by the gathering darkness.
"What shall I do?" cried Gypsy, thinking, with a great sinking at her heart, how cold the nights were now, and how early it grew quite dark.