"How should I know? Not down here, anyway," was Marianne's reply.
"But he must be down here," persisted Louisa. "He's gone out of the nursery, and so are his clothes. Whatever's taken him I can't imagine. I've searched the closets, and looked under the beds, and up in the attic, and I took Mr. Gray his hot water, and he isn't there. His spade's gone too, and his ap— Oh, mercy! there's his story-book now," and she pounced on "Robinson Crusoe," where it lay on the table. "He's been down here certain sure, for that book was on his bed when he went to sleep last night. Don't stand there, Marianne, but come and help me find him."
Into the parlor, the dining-room, the pantry, ran the maids, calling "Archie! Archie!" at the tops of their voices. But Archie, who as we know was a good mile away by that time, did not hear them. They searched the kitchen, the cellar, the wood-shed, the store-closet. Marianne even lifted the lid of the great copper boiler and peeped in to make sure that he was not there! Louisa ran wildly about the garden, looking behind currant bushes and raspberry vines, and parting the tall feathers of the asparagus lest Archie should have chosen to hide among them. She tapped the great green watermelons with her fingers as she passed,—perhaps she fancied that Archie might be stowed away inside of one. All was in vain. Archie was not behind the currant bushes, not even in the melon patch. Louisa began to sob and cry, Marianne, never backward, joined her with a true Irish howl; and it was in this condition that Archie's Papa found things when he came downstairs to breakfast.
Then ensued a fresh confusion.
"Where did you say the book was lying, Louisa?" said Mr. Gray, trying to make out the meaning of her sobbing explanation.
"Just here, sir, on the hall table. Oh, the darling child, whatever has come to him?"
"Oh, wurra! wurra!" chimed in Marianne. "He been and got took away by wicked people, perhaps. Well niver get him back, niver!"
"The hall table? Then he must have passed out this way. Surely you must have seen him or heard him open the door, Marianne?"
"Is it I see him, sir? I'd niver forget it if I had. Oh, the pretty face of him! Wurra! wurra!"
"But, now I think of it, the child couldn't have opened the door for himself," went on Papa, growing impatient. "Did you leave it standing open at all, Marianne?"