“Best not delay longer yourself, Dorothy—” called Miss Greatorex, but for once her charge did not pause at this tone of reproof; and a first, faint feeling of alarm rose in her own breast.
“Molly, lassie? No, indeed! I haven’t seen her to-day. I was off to work before she came down stairs, but I’ve been wishing for her and you, too, the livelong day. The wild-roses that you love are blooming wonderful. All my far-away meadows are hedged with them as perfect as if they’d been set out a-purpose. Miles of them, I fancy, are on this old farm; but little golden-haired Molly’s the sweetest wild-rose I’ve seen this summer. For you’re no wild rose, lassie. You’re one of those ‘cinnamons,’ home-keepers, close by the old house and that the Missus claims are the prettiest in all the world. So there’s a compliment for the pair of you! Wait till I whistle! Mistress Molly knows that it means: ‘Come! I’m waiting for your company!’ ’Twill fetch her, sure, if she’s within the sound of it.”
So he put his hands to his lips and whistled as only he could do, a long, musical note of call that reached far and wide and that the missing girl had often likened to the sound of Melvin’s bugle.
“QUEENIE TOO, HAD HEARD.”
Dorothy’s Travels.
But there came no answer of Queenie’s footfalls over the gravel nor their soft thud-thud upon the grass, and the farmer felt he could delay no longer. Yet, could he go? While his little “comrade” was missing? Silly, to feel a moment’s alarm at such a trivial thing. A thoughtless lassie, sure she was, this little maid of the far-away southland; but oh! so “winsie.” No. Let the hay wait. He’d tarry a bit longer and be on hand to scold Fair-Hair when she came galloping back with a string of merry excuses tumbling off her nimble tongue, her ready “I forgots” or “I didn’t thinks”—the teasing, adorable witch that she was!
“Fetch me my pipe and my paper, Dorothy, girl. I’ll wait under this apple tree till she comes. But do you all get your dinners and not so many go hungry because one wild child loiters. A whisper! The missus is getting a trifle crisp, in the kitchen yon. She’s missing the nap that is due her as soon as her people are fed. Best make haste. It’s pleasanter for all on the Farm when Missus is left to go her gait regular, without hindrance from any. Go, little maid, and a blessing on you.”
So she ran and brought him his pipe and his paper, received a kiss for her pains, and left him on the bench under the apple-tree, idle because little Molly was idle—no better reason than that—though this was his busiest time and he a most busy man.
But Mrs. Hungerford could not eat, even though courtesy compelled her to table and to taste the good fare provided. Her want of appetite banished Miss Isobel’s, and though Dorothy was healthily hungry, as why shouldn’t she be? even she sent away her plate untouched, and was the first of the trio to put into words the dreadful fear that was in all their hearts:
“I can’t, I can’t eat! Something has happened to Molly! Something terrible has come to our Molly!”