fields, Ruth the cellar; aunt
Louise and Horace ran down to the river. In half an hour several of
the neighbors had joined in the search.

"I always thought there would be a last time," said poor Mrs. Dr.
Gray, putting on her black bonnet, and joining Grace and Susy. "That
child seems to me like a little spirit, or a fairy, and I never
thought she would live long. She and Charlie were too lovely for this
world."

"O, _don't_, Mrs. Gray," said Grace. "If you knew how often she'd been
lost, you would not say so! We always find her, after a while,
somewhere."

Horace, who had gone on in advance, now came running back, swinging
his boots in the air.

"A trail!" cried he. "I've found a trail! Who planted these boots in
the road, if it wasn't Fly Clifford?"

"Perhaps she has gone to aunt Martha's," said Mrs. Parlin, "or tried
to. Strange we did not think of that!"

But aunt Martha had not seen her, nor had any one else. Horace and
Abner went up to the Pines, but the forest beyond they never thought
of exploring; it did not seem probable that such a small child could
have strolled to such a distance as that.

Supper time came and went. There was a short thunder-shower. The
Parlins shuddered at every flash of lightning, and shivered at every
drop of rain; for where was delicate, lost little Fly?

Abner and Horace were out during the shower. Horace would have braved
hurricanes and avalanches in the cause of his dear little Topknot.

"There's one thing we haven't thought of," said Abner, shaking the
drops from his hat and looking up at the sky, which had cleared again;
"we haven't thought of the railroad surveyors! They are round the town
everywhere with their compasses and spy-glasses."

It was not a bad idea of Abner's. He and Horace went to the hotel
where the railroad men boarded. The engineer's face lighted at once.

"I wish I had known before there was a child missing," he said. "I saw
the figure of a little girl, through my glass, not an hour ago. It was
a long way beyond the Pines, and I wondered how such a baby happened
up there; but I had so much else to think of that it passed out of my
mind."

About eight o'clock, Flyaway was found in the woods, sound asleep,
under a hemlock tree, her faithful Dinah hugged close to her heart.

There was a shout from a dozen mouths. Horace's eyes overflowed. He
caught his beloved pet in his arms.

"O, little Topknot!" he cried. "Who's got you? Look up, look up,
litt