The next morning brought unlooked-for disappointment to the little fellow, for it was rainy and stormy. No going out for Max—he must stay quietly in the nursery. And he looked so very sad about it that mamma was a little surprised: he was usually so cheerful and contented.
"You had plenty of running about yesterday, Maxie," she said. "We cannot expect it always to be fine. To-morrow will be sunny again very likely," and at this Max brightened up again.
"Him will bring the ladder then, perhaps," he said to himself.
Mamma proved a true prophet, "To-morrow" was a lovely day. So lovely that she and Max's father drove away to some distance, leaving word that they would not be back till the evening.
"Good-bye, darling. Be a good boy. Nurse will let you play in the garden all the afternoon," were their last words to the happy little face waving good-bye from the window.
But late that evening when they returned, they were met by a crowd of white-faced frightened servants, with a sad story to tell. "Master Max was not to be found. They had hunted up and down—everywhere. He was playing in the garden beside nurse, and she just left him for an instant to fetch her work, and when she came back he was gone—she gave the alarm at once, and ever since they had been searching." But in vain. Yet where could he be? There was no pond into which he could have fallen—no high bank even, over which he could have rolled.
The garden was the safest there could be, many a score of times had Max played there alone, though within view of the nursery windows; nurse could not be blamed. No one, nothing, was to blame. It was a mystery!
The father and mother looked at each other with anguish in their eyes. It was growing late. How could they live through the night with the thought of their darling out alone in the darkness? And where?
"Oh, where can he be?"
Suddenly the mother looked up—yes, there were the stars coming out again one after the other, as if nothing were the matter; just as they had done two evenings before when little Max had been gazing at them from behind the curtains. What was it he had been saying in his funny little way? The half-heard words rushed back to her memory.