It was two or three days after this that Dr. Brown was driving rapidly home toward the village. He had had a tiresome day, and he meant to have a cup of Vesta Dale's good tea and a song from Melody to smooth down his ruffled plumage, and to put him into good-humor again. His patients had been very trying, especially the last one he had visited,—an old lady who sent for him from ten miles' distance, and then told him she had taken seventy-five bottles of Vegetine without benefit, and wanted to know what she should do next. "I really do not know, Madam," the doctor replied, "unless you should pound up the seventy-five bottles with their labels, and take those." Whereupon he got into his buggy and drove off without another word.
But the Dale girls and Melody—bless them all for a set of angels!—would soon put him to rights again, thought the doctor, and he would send old Mrs. Prabbles some pills in the morning. There was nothing whatever the matter with the old harridan. Here was the turn; now in a moment he would see Vesta sitting in the doorway at her knitting, or looking out of Rejoice's window; and she would call the child whom his heart loved, and then for a happy, peaceful evening, and all vexations forgotten!
But what was this? Instead of the trim, staid figure he looked to see, who was this frantic woman who came running toward him from the little house, with white hair flying on the wind, with wild looks? Her dress was disordered; her eyes stared in anguish; her lips stammered, making confused sounds, which at first had no meaning to the startled hearer. But he heard—oh, he heard and understood, when the distracted woman grasped his arm, and cried,—
"Melody is stolen! stolen! and Rejoice is dead!"
CHAPTER VII.
LOST.
Miss Rejoice was not dead; though the doctor had a moment of dreadful fright when he saw her lying all crumpled up on the floor, her eyes closed, her face like wrinkled wax. Between them, the doctor and Miss Vesta got her back into bed, and rubbed her hands, and put stimulants between her closed lips. At last her breath began to flutter, and then came back steadily. She opened her eyes; at first they were soft and mild as usual, but presently a wild look stole into them.
"The child!" she whispered; "the child is gone!"
"We know it," said Dr. Brown, quietly. "We shall find her, Rejoice, never fear. Now you must rest a few minutes, and then you shall tell us how it happened. Why, we found you on the floor, my child,"—Miss Rejoice was older than the doctor, but it seemed natural to call her by any term of endearment,—"how upon earth did you get there?"
Slowly, with many pauses for breath and composure, Miss Rejoice told her story. It was short enough. Melody had been sitting with her, reading aloud from the great book which now lay face downward on the floor by the window. Milton's "Paradise Lost" it was, and Rejoice Dale could never bear to hear the book named in her life after this time. A carriage drove up and stopped at the door, and Melody went out to see who had come. As she went, she said, "It is a strange wagon; I have never heard it before." They both supposed it some stranger who had stopped to ask for a glass of water, as people often did, driving through the village on their way to the mountains. The sick woman heard a man speaking, in smooth, soft tones; she caught the words: "A little drive—fine afternoon;" and Melody's clear voice replying, "No, thank you, sir; you are very kind, but my aunt and I are alone, and I could not leave her. Shall I bring you a glass of water?" Then—oh, then—there was a sound of steps, a startled murmur in the beloved voice, and then a scream. Oh, such a scream! Rejoice Dale shrank down in her bed, and cried out herself in agony at the memory of it. She had called, she had shrieked aloud, the helpless creature, and her only answer was another cry of anguish: "Help! help! Auntie! Doctor! Rosin! Oh, Rosin, Rosin, help!" Then the cry was muffled, stifled, sank away into dreadful silence; the wagon drove off, and all was over. Rejoice Dale found herself on the floor, dragging herself along on her elbows. Paralyzed from the waist down, the body was a weary weight to drag, but she clutched at a chair, a table; gained a little way at each movement; thought she was nearly at the door, when sense and strength failed, and she knew nothing more till she saw her sister and the doctor bending over her.