Liz, who was sitting beside her, also
engaged in needlework, but of a lighter description, the young lady
devoting her energies to the manufacture of a doll's mantilla.

"No," said Liz abstractedly, her mouth at the time being full of pins
for their more handy use when wanted, a bad habit she had acquired from
a seamstress occasionally employed at the vicarage.

"Dear me, I wonder if I left the reel upstairs," said Conny, much
concerned at the loss; and she was just about prosecuting the search
thither when Cissy threw a little light on the subject, explaining at
once the cause of the cotton's disappearance.

"Don't you recollect, Con," she observed, "you lent it to Teddy the
other day? I don't s'pose he ever returned it to you, for I'm sure I
saw it this morning with his things in the nursery."

"No more he did," replied Conny. "Please go and tell him to bring it
back. I know where you'll find him. Mary is helping Molly making a
pie, and he's certain to be in the kitchen dabbling in the paste."

"All right!" said Cissy; and presently her little musical voice could be
heard calling through the house, "Teddy! Teddy!" as she ran along the
passage towards the back.

Bye and bye, however, she returned to the parlour unsuccessful.

"I can't see him anywhere," she said. "He's not with Mary, or in the
garden, or anywhere!"

"Oh, that boy!" exclaimed Conny. "He's up to some mischief again, and
must have gone down to the village or somewhere against papa's orders.
Do you know where he is, Liz?"

"No," replied the young sempstress, taking the pins out of her mouth
furtively, seeing that Conny was looking at her. "He ran out of the
house before we had finished dinner, and took Puck with him."

"Then he has gone off on one of his wild pranks," said her elder sister,
rising up and putting all the stockings into her work-basket. "I will
go and speak to papa."

The vicar had just finished the "thirdly, brethren," of his sermon; and
he was just cogitating how to bring in his "lastly," and that favourite
"word more in conclusion" with which he generally wound up the weekly
discourse he gave his congregation, when Conny tapped at the study door
timidly awaiting permission to enter.

"What's the matter?" called out Mr Vernon rather testily, not liking to
be disturbed in his peroration.

"I want to speak to you, papa," said Conny, still from without.

"Then come in," he answered in a sort of resigned tone of voice