nd it," she said. "How you bear
up as you do is just wonderful. I'm sure I can't get it out of my mind
for a moment. I keep seeing them as they passed by that last afternoon.
Nurse was a bit vexed with them--missy's frock was torn and----"

"Yes," interrupted Grandmamma--Grandpapa seeing her occupied had at last
made up his mind to open his newspaper--"Yes, I was thinking of that.
They told us about it, and they asked what it meant to be 'a great
charge;' they had heard Nurse say that to you. She is a good woman, I
feel sure, Barbara, but perhaps she is a little too strict. I have got
it so on my mind that they had some little trouble they did not like to
tell about, and that that, somehow, has had to do with it all."

"You don't mean, ma'am, that such tiny trots as that would have run away
on purpose?" said Barbara in surprise. "Oh no, they'd never have done
that."

"No, I do not mean that exactly," said Grandmamma. "I do not think I
know rightly what I mean. Dear, dear, I wish Dymock would keep Toby
away," she added. "You don't know how he startles me--every time he
comes close to me I fancy somehow it is the children," and Grandmamma
looked so uneasy and nervous that Barbara quietly took up the little dog
and put him out of the room. "And, Barbara, you had no reason for coming
to see me? Except, of course--I was forgetting--that you are going
away."

"Only for a few days, ma'am," Barbara replied. "I had a letter from my
niece--leastways from her husband--the niece who lives over near
Monkhaven--yesterday. She's been very ill, ma'am,--very ill indeed, and
though she's getting better it would be a great comfort to her to see
me, and maybe spirit her up a bit to get well quicker. So I'm just
setting off--I've locked up my cottage and left the key next door. But I
couldn't start without looking in again to see if maybe you had any
news."

"No, no--nothing," replied Grandmamma. "And I feel as if I couldn't bear
much more. I am breaking up, Barbara; a few days more will see the last
of me, my old friend, if they bring no tidings."

Barbara's eyes filled with tears, but she said nothing.--She had
exhausted all her attempts at comfort, all her "perhaps"'s, and
"maybe"'s as to what had become of the children; and though she was a
very cheerful and hopeful old woman, she was also very sympathising, and
it made her dreadfully sad to see Grandmamma so changed and cast down.

"It goes to my heart, ma'am, to see you so," s