parlour-maid met them at the door,
pale and tearful. 'Oh, my lady, Mrs. Eden's come, and--'

Poor Eden herself was in the hall, and nothing was to be heard but 'Oh,
my lady!' and another tempest of sobs.

'Come in, Eden,' scolded Bertha, in her impatience. 'Don't keep us in
this way. What has happened to the child? Let us have it at once! The
worst, or you wouldn't be here.'

For all answer, Eden held up a little wooden spade, a sailor hat, and a
shoe showing traces of sand and sea-water.

'It is so then,' said Lady Adela. 'Oh, his mother! But,' after that one
wail, she thought of the poor woman before her, 'I am sure you are not to
blame, Eden.'

'Oh, my lady, if I could but feel that! But that I should have trusted
the darling out of my sight for a moment!'

Presently they brought her to a state in which she could tell her
lamentable history.

She had been spending the afternoon at Mr. Rollstone's, leaving Master
Michael as usual in the care of the underling, Ellen, and after that she
knew no more till neither child nor maid came home at his supper-time,
and Mrs. Morton was slowly roused to take alarm, while Eden, half
distracted, wandered about, seeking her charge, and found Ellen, calling
and shouting in vain for him. Ellen confessed that she had seen him
running after the Lincoln children, and supposing him with them, had
given herself up to the study of a penny dreadful in company with another
young nursemaid. When they had awakened to real life, the first idea had
been that he must be with these children; but they were gone, and Ellen,
fancying that he might have gone home with them, asked at their lodging,
but no, he was not there.

The tide was by this time covering the beach, and driving away the
miserable maids, with the aunt, cousin and others who had been on the
fruitless quest. No more could be done then, and they went home with
desolation in their hearts. Miss Ida, as Eden declared, stayed out long
after everybody else when it was clearly of no use, and came back so
tired and upset that she went up straight to bed. There was still a hope
that some one might have met the little boy and taken him home, unable
clearly to make out to whom he belonged, more especially as the Lincolns
in terror and compunction had confessed that they had seen him and his
nurse from a distance, and had rushed headlong round a projecting rock
into a cove, hoping that he had not seen them, because he was so t