d not been seen since five o'clock, at which time she had been left
by her nurse fast asleep, and to all human apprehension in perfect
safety. On that day she had been allowed to have the range of the
house, and taking a freak to have her belated afternoon nap on the
drawing-room sofa, was there put to sleep.

"The nurse took the opportunity to have a little gossip with the cook
and coachman, in the kitchen, and it was a good deal more than an hour,
I believe, though she declared it was not half that time, before she
went to look after her charge. The room was empty; the low window was
open, and our bird had flown forever!

"It was some time before the servants were really alarmed, as it was
thought she was somewhere in the house or garden, hiding, after her
roguish way. I think it was actually dark before they made any serious
and thorough effort to find her. Indeed, I set on foot the first
systematic search. I roused all our neighbors, and employed the police
of our town, and afterwards of New York and other cities; but all was
in vain, utterly in vain! No real trace of her could be found. We
could not even hear of any child answering to her description, as
having been taken from the town on that day, in any direction,--except
one, who was seen on the New York boat I have mentioned, and who must,
I think, have been younger than ours, or it was ill or stupid, as it
was said the woman who had charge of it carried it constantly in her
arms, where it lay quite still. Even this child we could only trace as
far as New York. It seemed to disappear in the great city as a
snowflake melts in the sea.

"Our friends all believed that our little Mary had fallen from the
river-bank and had been drowned, and the body carried away by the swift
current. Some lads, who were out on the water that day in a sail-boat,
said that they saw a child on the bank a little below our house,
running about quite alone, apparently chasing butterflies. But it was
several months before we relaxed our efforts to find her. So many lost
children were brought to us in answer to our advertisements,--so many
poor little homeless ones, whom nobody owned,--that it looked as though
we were about to set up an orphan asylum. In truth, we sometimes felt
like it, for dear little Mary's sake. We could not give her up, for we
could not believe her dead. Our sorrow was such a _live_
anguish--without comfort, without rest--that we felt that the dear
o