“The child’s gone!” was her gloomy exclamation.
“Gone!” echoed “Cobbler” Horn blankly, looking up. “Where?”
“I don’t know; but she’s gone quite away, and may never come back.”
Then “Cobbler” Horn perceived that his sister was alarmed; and, notwithstanding the occasion, he was comforted by the unwonted tenderness she had expressed. As for Marian, he knew her for a born rambler; and it was not the first time she had strayed from home.
“Perhaps,” he said placidly, “she has gone to the little shop over the way.”
Then he resumed his work, as though he had simply told his sister where she would be likely to find her spectacles.
Aunt Jemima took the hint, as a drowning person catches at a straw. She made her way to the front-door, and having opened it, was on the point of crossing the street, when Tommy Dudgeon emerged from the shop, and came over towards where she stood.
“Good morning, ma-am,” he said, halting at a respectful distance. “You are looking for little miss?”
“Well,” snapped Aunt Jemima, “and if I am, what then? Do you know where she is?”
“No, ma-am; but I saw her go away.”