When the evening shadows began to fall, the nurse tapped at the room door and entered. “Has Harry been here, mum?”
“No, Lizzie; don’t you know where he is?”
“Haven’t seen him for hours, mum. I made sure he was here.”
“Oh! you silly child, to let him out of your sight like that. Go and look for him at once.”
“Where is the child, I wonder,” she continued, addressing her husband. “Where can Harold be?”
“Mm? what?” said Harry’s father, looking lazily over his newspaper. “Child Harold? Gone on a pilgrimage perhaps.”
“Oh! don’t be foolish,” said his wife, petulantly. “Well, my dear, how should I know. Very likely he is up in the dusty attic squatting among the cobwebs, or rummaging for curiosities in some old drawer or another.”
But Harry was not upstairs among the cobwebs, nor rummaging in any drawer whatever, nor talking to John in the stable, nor playing with his toys in the loft, nor anywhere else that any one could think of.
So there was a pretty to do.
But in the midst of it all, lo! Eily and Harry both presented themselves at the hall door, and you could not have said which of the two was in the most miserable plight. Both were so wet and so bedraggled.