“Thomasina!” cried Cynthia, aghast. “How perfectly dreadful!” and felt her throat tighten. For a moment she could not speak for fear of bursting into tears. Little Thomasina! “When ... how long?” she asked after a moment.
“Perhaps not stolen ... perhaps. ... But she has been gone since early this morning. It is two now. She did not come home for her noon meal. Her grandfather came to ask if we had seen her. She has never gone from the dooryard before, not until yesterday when she came here. Her father thinks she may have strayed down the road and met someone; she was very unhappy over a little thrush they had, which died. She may have been looking for him.”
Cynthia knew those little thrushes in their willow cages which hung outside so many French doorways.
“They are afraid of the canal, and the mill-pond.”
“Oh, but surely ...” Cynthia shivered and was silent. No, nothing like that could happen to someone that one knew! Absently she pushed away the last of her raspberries. They were her favorite fruit but she had lost any appetite for them.
“Painting this afternoon?” asked her host, trying to be cheerful.
Yes, Cynthia had thought she’d take the tram into the tiny village and sketch the interior of the old ruined fort, with the remains of the sally-port and guardhouse.
Monsieur Marge surveyed the sky, unflinchingly blue. “Too hot to go into town,” he commented. “Why not stay and we go hunt for mushrooms. Madame wishes some for the dinner tonight. I know deep woods, cool, where the sun does not strike.”
City-bred Cynthia had never gathered mushrooms; it sounded like a new and amusing experience, and it would certainly be cooler than sketching on that hot and sunny hill beyond the town. Besides she didn’t really want to go far from the house, in case little Thomasina should be found ... no, when she should be found.
Cynthia went to her room for a wide shade hat and came downstairs again to find M. Marge ready for her. He bore a leather bound makhila, the Basque walking stick, with its graven brass binding and leather strap.