And I think you might almost have knocked some of us down with a feather in our surprise, when, in the midst of one of old Coney’s stories, we turned round at the sudden opening of the door, and saw Miss Timmens amongst us. A prevision of evil seemed to seize Mrs. Todhetley, and she rose up.
“The child! Is she not at home?”
“No, ma’am; neither has she been there,” answered Miss Timmens, ignoring ceremony (as people are apt to do at seasons of anxiety or commotion) and sitting down uninvited. “I came back to tell you so, and to ask what you thought had better be done.”
“The child must have started for home and lost her way in the snow,” cried the Squire, putting down his pipe in consternation. “What does the mother think?”
“I did not tell her of it,” said Miss Timmens. “I went on by myself to her house; and the first thing I saw there, on opening the door, was a little pair of slippers warming on the fender. ‘Oh, have you brought Nettie?’ began the mother, before I could speak: ‘I’ve got her shoes warm for her. Is she very, very cold?—and has she enjoyed herself and been good?’ Well, sir, seeing how it was—that the child had not got home—I answered lightly: ‘Oh, the children are not here yet; my sister and Maria Lease are with them. I’ve just stepped on to see how your bruises are getting on.’ For that poor Sarah Trewin is good for so little that one does not care to alarm her,” concluded Miss Timmens, as if she would apologize for her deceit.
The Squire nodded approval, and told me to give Miss Timmens something hot to drink. Mrs. Todhetley, looking three parts frightened out of her wits, asked what was to be done.
Yes; what was to be done? What could be done? A sort of council was held amongst them, some saying one thing, some another. It seemed impossible to suggest anything.
“Had harm come to her in running home, had she fallen into the snow, for instance, or anything of that sort, we should have seen or heard her,” observed Miss Timmens. “She would be sure to take the direct path—the way we came here and returned.”
“It might be easy enough for the child to lose her way—the roads and fields are like a wide white plain,” observed Mrs. Coney. “She might have strayed aside amongst the trees in the triangle.”
Miss Timmens shook her head in dissent.