“I could put my two feet into one of them,” responded Flower, curling her proud lip once again disdainfully. But then she glanced at the baby, and a queer shiver passed over her; her eyes grew moist, her hands trembled.
“I will put the boots on,” she said. And she slipped her little feet, in their dainty fine silk stockings, into Maggie’s shoes.
“Good-by, Miss; come back as soon as you can,” called out the faithful waiting-maid, and Flower set off across the lonely moor.
CHAPTER IX.
AN OLD SONG.
It took a great deal to frighten Polly Maybright; no discipline, no hard words, no punishments, had ever been able to induce the smallest sensation of fear in her breast. As to the moor, she had been brought up on it; she had drank in its air, and felt its kindly breath on her cheeks from her earliest days. The moors were to Polly like dear, valued, but somewhat stern, friends. To be alone, even at night, in one of the small ravines of Peg-Top Moor had little in itself to alarm the moorland child.
It took Polly some time to realize that she was absolutely unable to stir a step. Struggle as she might, she could not put that badly-injured foot to the ground. Even she, brave and plucky as she was, had not the nerve to undergo this agony. She could not move, therefore she could do nothing at present to recover little Pearl. This was really the thought which distressed her. As to sleeping with her head pressed against the friendly bracken, or staying on Peg-Top Moor all night, these were small considerations. But not to be able to stir a step to find the baby, to feel that Flower was carrying the baby farther and farther away, and that Polly’s chance of ever seeing her again was growing less and less, became at last a thought of such agony that the poor little girl could scarcely keep from screaming aloud.
“And it was all my fault!” she moaned. “I forgot what father said about climbing the highest mountain. When David came to me, and told me that Flower was subject to those awful passions, I forgot all about my mountain-climbing. I did not recognize that I had come to a dangerous bit, so that I wanted the ropes of prayer and the memory of mother to pull me over it. No, I did nothing but rejoice in the knowledge that I didn’t much like Flower, and that I was very, very glad to tease her. Now I am punished. Oh, oh, what shall I do? Oh, if baby is lost! If baby dies, I shall die too! Oh, I think I’m the most miserable girl in all the world! What shall I do? Why did mother go away? Why did Flower come here? Why did I want her to come? I made a mess of the housekeeping, and now I have made a mess of the visit of the strangers. Oh, I’m the sort of girl who oughtn’t to go a step alone!—I really, really am! I think I’m the very weakest sort of girl in all the world!”