The girl began to laugh. “Well, there is one, even if it isn’t marked on your map. They don’t mark all the houses, you know. If your way takes you along down this lane you’ll pass the house, and mother would be awfully pleased to see you if you could spare a little while. She rarely gets news of the City or sees anybody.”
“We were going along this way,” said Jack. “And we were just wondering if there was anywhere we could get a drink of water, because we’re both so thirsty....”
“Thirsty?” said the girl. “Why, here is the very thing!” And she opened her basket and took out a beautiful bunch of grapes. “I had been sent out to gather these from our vine—twelve bunches I’ve gathered. Do have one.” She placed a delicious-looking bunch in Jack’s hands.
“Oh, no—really. I say, can you spare them, though?” protested Jack. “And wouldn’t your mother mind?”
“She’d mind if I didn’t give you a bunch when you were so thirsty,” said the girl, and insisted on Molly having a bunch too.
“Well, it really is awfully kind of you,” said Jack, and Molly thanked her also.
Molly hesitated just a second before eating her grapes, wondering if they were doing right in accepting them from the little girl whose name even they didn’t know. But a glance at the little girl’s sweet, frank face reassured any doubts Molly may have had. Jack had already started his bunch. So Molly ate her grapes too.
“You know,” said Jack, “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted such jolly fine grapes. I was terribly thirsty after searching all the morning.”
“Searching?” asked the girl, puzzled. “Did you say searching? What have you lost?”
“It isn’t what we’ve lost—it’s what we can’t find,” said Jack. “You know—it’s what they’re all looking for.”