“Oh, don’t!” said Hester impatiently. “Why should everyone throw mud at a girl when she is down? If poor Annie is naughty and guilty, she is suffering now.”
“Annie not naughty,” said little Nan. “Me love my own Annie; me do, me do.”
“And you love your own poor old nurse, too?” responded the somewhat jealous nurse.
Hester left the two playing happily together, the little one caressing her nurse, and blowing one or two kisses after her sister’s retreating form. Hester returned to the house, and went up to her room to prepare for dinner. She had washed her hands, and was standing before the looking-glass re-plaiting her long hair when Susan Drummond, looking extremely wild and excited, and with her eyes almost starting out of her head, rushed into the room.
“Oh, Hester, Hester!” she gasped, and she flung herself on Hester’s bed, with her face downwards; she seemed absolutely deprived for the moment of the power of any further speech.
“What is the matter, Susan?” inquired Hester half impatiently. “What have you come into my room for? Are you going into a fit of hysterics? You had better control yourself, for the dinner gong will sound directly.”
Susan gasped two or three times, made a rush to Hester’s wash-handstand, and taking up a glass, poured some cold water into it, and gulped it down.
“Now I can speak,” she said. “I ran so fast that my breath quite left me. Hester, put on your walking things or go without them, just as you please—only go at once if you would save her.”
“Save whom?” asked Hester.
“Your little sister—little Nan. I—I saw it all. I was in the hammock, and nobody knew I was there, and somehow I wasn’t so sleepy as usual, and I heard Nan’s voice, and I looked over the side of the hammock, and she was sitting on the grass picking daisies, and her nurse was with her, and presently you came up. I heard you calling me, but I wasn’t going to answer. I felt too comfortable. You stayed with Nan and her nurse for a little, and then went away; and I heard Nan’s nurse say to her: ‘Sit here, Missy, till I come back to you; I am going to fetch another reel of sewing cotton from the house. Sit still, Missy; I’ll be back directly.’ She went away, and Nan went on picking her daisies. All on a sudden I heard Nan give a sharp little cry, and I looked over the hammock, and there was a tall dark woman, with such a wicked face, and she snatched up Nan in her arms, and put a thick shawl over her face, and ran off with her. It was all done in an instant. I shouted, and I scrambled out of the hammock, and I rushed down the path; but there wasn’t a sign of anybody there. I don’t know where the woman went—it seemed as if the earth swallowed up both her and little Nan. Why, Hester, are you going to faint?”