y dawn of the morning, and then the clear brightness of
the day,--and still Michael and Agnes were childless.

7. "She has sunk into some mossy or miry place," said Michael, to a man
near him, into whose face he could not look, "a cruel, cruel death to one
like her! The earth on which my child walked has closed over her, and we
shall never see her more!"

8. At last, a man who had left the search, and gone in a direction toward
the highroad, came running with something in his arms toward the place
where Michael and others were standing beside Agnes, who lay, apparently
exhausted almost to dying, on the sward. He approached hesitatingly; and
Michael saw that he carried Lucy's bonnet, clothes, and plaid.

9. It was impossible not to see some spots of blood upon the frill that
the child had worn around her neck. "Murdered! murdered!" was the one word
whispered or ejaculated all around; but Agnes heard it not; for, worn out
by that long night of hope and despair, she had fallen asleep, and was,
perhaps, seeking her lost Lucy in her dreams.

10. Isabel took the clothes, and, narrowly inspecting them with eye and
hand, said, with a fervent voice that was heard even in Michael's despair,
"No, Lucy is yet among the living. There are no marks of violence on the
garments of the innocent; no murderer's hand has been here. These blood
spots have been put here to deceive. Besides, would not the murderer have
carried off these things? For what else would he have murdered her? But,
oh! foolish despair! What speak I of? For, wicked as the world is--ay!
desperately wicked--there is not, on all the surface of the wide earth, a
hand that would murder our child! Is it not plain as the sun in the
heaven, that Lucy has been stolen by some wretched gypsy beggar?"

11. The crowd quietly dispersed, and horse and foot began to scour the
country. Some took the highroads, others all the bypaths, and many the
trackless hills. Now that they were in some measure relieved from the
horrible belief that the child was dead, the worst other calamity seemed
nothing, for hope brought her back to their arms.

12. Agnes had been able to walk home to Bracken-Braes, and Michael and
Isabel sat by her bedside. All her strength was gone, and she lay at the
mercy of the rustle of a leaf, or a shadow across the window. Thus hour
after hour passed, till it was again twilight. "I hear footsteps coming up
the brae," said Agnes, who had for some time appeared to be