aring that every corner had
been searched, and still there was no trace of Dorothy."

"Didn't grannie nearly go mad?" asked Eustace feelingly. He well
knew what the loss of Becky would mean to his mother.

"Very nearly," was the answer; "but I think your grandfather was
even worse. All the tiny children were taken home, but many of the
elder boys and girls begged to be allowed to stay and help, and now
the hunt began outside with lanterns among outhouses and stables.
The echoes rang with Dorothy's name, but in vain; the hunt was
useless, and some of us straggled back into the house and began
calling and looking all over the same ground again. I cannot tell
you what terrible thoughts had got into our heads by that time. We
remembered the story of the lady who hid herself in the old spring
chest and could not get out--"

"The Mistletoe Bough lady," breathed Eustace.

"Yes; and we hunted every box, chest, and cupboard in the house,
but Dorothy was in none of them. She seemed literally to have been
spirited away. It became so late that at last all the other
children were taken home, and we were left just ourselves--a very
miserable family."

Eustace sat up suddenly and held his breath, his face blanched, his
eyes alert.

"At last, close on midnight," Mrs. Orban went on in a low voice.

"Mother, mother," Eustace said in a sharp whisper, kneeling and
putting an arm protectingly round her, "did you hear something?"

"Yes, darling," Mrs. Orban continued, "close on midnight--"

"No, no," Eustace said, "not then--now--this minute, as you were
speaking!"

Mrs. Orban started perceptibly.

"No, darling," she answered. "Why? Did you?"

There was an instant's tense silence.

"It is some one coming round the veranda--barefoot," Eustace
whispered.

"One of the maids, perhaps," said Mrs. Orban, but her voice
quivered.

"They would come through the house," said the boy. "This fellow has
come up the veranda steps. I heard them creak."

A lifetime in great solitude sharpens the hearing to the most
extraordinary extent. Children born and brought up in the wilds
often have this sense more keenly developed than any other. The
Orban children seemed to hear without listening--sounds which, even
when she was told of them, Mrs. Orban, with her English training,
did not catch till several minutes later.

But now the pad-pad-pad of bare feet was unmistakable--a
pad-pad-pad, then a halt, as if the visitor stopped to listen.