Poor Hannah, tired as she was, set out immediately with Lawrence and Richard to scour the grounds, while Mrs. Duer bade the household servants search the house from garret to cellar.
She herself hastened up to the nursery in the hope of finding some clue to the mystery of the child’s disappearance. But all she saw on entering the room was Priscilla crouching on the rug before the nursery-couch and crying her heart out from loneliness and disappointment.
“My dearest, what is it?” asked Mrs. Duer anxiously hastening to her and gathering her up tenderly in her arms.
Priscilla hid her tear-stained face in her mother’s neck. “I want Polly,” she sobbed out brokenly.
“Yes, darling, I know you do,” Mrs. Duer said gently, “and I have no doubt she will be found in a very little while. She was here, safe and well, this morning, and she cannot have wandered far, for I forbade her to go beyond the gates and I cannot believe she has disobeyed me.”
“I have something I must p’rtic’larly tell her right away,” the shaken little voice continued.
“I wonder what it can be?” ventured Mrs. Duer, encouragingly. “Don’t you think you can confide it to mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”