"It was Susy and I that had the care of her, grandma; when you went out to see the sick lady, you charged us, and we forgot all about it."
"Pretty works, I should think!" cried Horace, springing out of his chair; "I wouldn't sell that baby for her weight in gold; but I reckon you would, Grace Clifford, and be glad of it, too."
Grandma held up a warning finger. "I declare," said aunt Louise, very much agitated, "I never shall consent to have Maria go out of town again, and leave Katie with us. If she will try to swim in the watering-trough, she is just as likely to take a walk on the ridgepole of the house."
Horace darted out of the room with a ghastly face, but came back looking relieved. He had been up in the attic, and climbed through the scuttle, without finding any human Fly on the roof, or on the dizzy tops of the chimneys, either.
But where was the child? Had Ruth seen her? Had Abner?
No; the last that could be remembered, she had been playing by herself in the green chamber, soaking Dinah's feet in a glass of water. The "blue kitty," the only creature who had anything to tell, sat washing her face on the kitchen hearth, and yawning sleepily. Fly's shaker was gone from the "short nail," and aunt Louise discovered some bank-bills in a wash-bowl,—"Fly's work, of course." But this was all they knew.
Grandpa searched the barn, Abner the fields, Ruth the cellar; aunt Louise and Horace ran down to the river. In half an hour several of the neighbors had joined in the search.
"I always thought there would be a last time," said poor Mrs. Dr. Gray, putting on her black bonnet, and joining Grace and Susy. "That child seems to me like a little spirit, or a fairy, and I never thought she would live long. She and Charlie were too lovely for this world."
"O, don't, Mrs. Gray," said Grace. "If you knew how often she'd been lost, you would not say so! We always find her, after a while, somewhere."
Horace, who had gone on in advance, now came running back, swinging his boots in the air.