Zariffa had, by that time, passed out of the condition of brown-babyhood. She had, to her own intense delight, been promoted to the condition of a decently-clad little savage. In addition to the scuttle bonnet which was not quite so tremulous as that of her mother, she now sported a blue flannel petticoat. This was deemed sufficient for her, the climate being warm.
Zariffa was still, however, too young to take care of herself. Great, therefore, was Betsy Waroonga’s alarm when she missed her one day from her little bed where she should have been sleeping.
“Ebony!” cried Betsy, turning sharply round and glaring, “Zariffa’s gone.”
“Quite dead,” exclaimed the negro, aghast.
“Not at all dead,” said Betsy; “but gone—gone hout of hers bed.”
“Dat no great misfortin’, missis,” returned Ebony, with a sigh of relief.
“It’s little you knows, stoopid feller,” returned the native missionary’s wife, while her coal-scuttle shook with imparted emotion; “Zariffa never dis’beyed me in hers life. She’s lost. We must seek—seek quick!”
The sympathetic negro became again anxious, and looked hastily under the chairs and tables for the lost one, while her mother opened and searched a corner cupboard that could not have held a child half her size. Then the pair became more and more distracted as each excited the other, and ran to the various outhouses shouting, “Zariffa!” anxiously, entreatingly, despairing.
They gathered natives as they ran, hither and thither, searching every nook and corner, and burst at last in an excited crowd into the presence of Waroonga himself, who was in the act of detailing the history of Joseph to a select class of scholars, varying from seven to seventeen years of age.
“Oh! massa, Zariffa’s lost!” cried Ebony.