Where could the little fellow be?
She walked round the house, calling and whistling softly. She visited
the barn and the cow-shed and all the haunts where her favorite was wont
to linger; but no Jock was to be seen. "Perhaps he has gone over to see
Will," she thought, with a feeling of relief. Indeed, this was very
possible, as the two dogs were very brotherly, and frequently exchanged
visits, sometimes acting as letter-carriers for their two mistresses,
Pink and Hilda. If Jock was at Pink's house, he would be well cared for,
and Bubble would--but here Hildegarde started, as a new perplexity
arose. Where _was_ Bubble? They had actually forgotten the boy in the
confusion and trouble of the day. He had not certainly come to the
house, as he invariably did; and the farmer had not spoken of him when
he came in at noon. Perhaps Pink was ill, Hilda thought, with fresh
alarm. If it should be so, Bubble could not leave her, for Mrs. Chirk
was nursing a sick woman two or three miles away, and there were no
other neighbors nearer than the farm. "Oh, my Pink!" cried Hilda; "and I
cannot go to you at once, for Nurse Lucy must not be left alone in her
trouble. I must wait, wait patiently till Farmer Hartley comes back."
Patiently she tried to wait. She stole up to her room, and taking up one
of her best-beloved books, "The Household of Sir Thomas More," lost
herself for a while in the noble sorrows of Margaret Roper. But even
this could not hold her long in her restless frame of mind, so she went
downstairs again, and out into the soft, golden September air, and fell
to pacing up and down the gravel walk before the house like a slender,
white-robed sentinel.
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