"I don't think it was anybody. S'pose folks is fools to run out in sich a storm as that there? I know Miss Sibyl had queer notions sometimes, but she has more sense, I reckon, nor to go out philandering through the rain."
"Well, it must have been somebody," said Carl, with a sort of dogged resolution. "I know I seen a woman running like a house a-fire through all the wind and rain."
"No, you didn't," said Aunt Tom, shortly. "'Twas only a touch of nightmare; so don't bother me any more about it."
Thus ignominiously silenced, Carl proceeded lazily to assist in the preparation for breakfast, which he would greatly have preferred discussing, if left to himself, to getting ready.
The coffee and biscuits were smoking at length, on the table, but Christie did not make her appearance.
"Very strange," said Mrs. Tom; "don't see what in the world keeps the gal. Here it is going on to seven o'clock, and my work a-standing, while we're waiting for her. Carl, jest run out and see ef you can see her."
Carl started on his mission, but soon returned, announcing that nothing was to be seen of her.
"Then there's no use a-waiting any longer," said Mrs. Tom. "Set down; may be she's gone to the lodge to breakfast with Miss Sibyl."
The meal was over, the service cleared away. Carl set out to weed the garden; Mrs. Tom sat down to her wheel. But still Christie came not.
"Very strange!" observed Mrs. Tom, at last beginning to grow uneasy. "Ten o'clock, and Christie not here yet! My stars! I wonder ef anything can hev happened to her? I've noticed she's been kind o' silent and pinin' away for the last two or three days. I hope nothin's happened to her. Oh, here she is now! No 'tain't neither; it's Miss Sibyl."