who was very kind and nice, was
talking and smiling as much as she could to help poor mother.)

"Uneasy," said grandfather, rather sharply, and not _quite_ so politely
as he generally spoke, "oh no, of course I'm not _uneasy_. My daughter
Helen can take care of herself. I am only very much surprised at her
doing such an extraordinary thing as forgetting the hour like this."

But in his heart I fancy what the lady said did make grandfather begin
to think there might be something to be uneasy about, and this made him
still crosser. She was not such a sensible lady as old Mrs. Bryan in the
arm-chair opposite, who chattered the more the more she saw
grandfather's worried look grow worse, and the pain grew plainer on poor
mother's white face.

"May," he called out at last, "I think it is nonsense waiting dinner
any longer. Tell one of the children to ring and order it up at once.
Why, they're not here! Why are none of the children down, May?
Everything seems at sixes and sevens."

"We are not waiting for Nelly, father dear," said mother. "I don't know
why dinner isn't ready yet, but I think it can't be long. I will hurry
them," and she got up to ring herself.

"But the children--why aren't they down?" said grandfather again.

Mother hesitated--

"It is rather late for them," she said. "The girls have been a long walk
and are tired."

She did not know what to say, poor thing. She had not dared to let the
three children come into the drawing-room, for fear their white faces
and red eyes should make grandfather find out that there _was_ something
wrong, and indeed neither Celia, nor Denny, nor Fritz, would have been
able to stay still in the room for five minutes. They were peeping out
of the nursery every few seconds, running along to the end of the
balcony, and straining their eyes and ears in trying to see or hear
anything coming in the shape of good news.

Long, long afterwards they used to speak in the nursery, with deep
breaths, of "that _terrible_ evening when Herr Baby was lost."

But it was, of course, the worst for poor mother. It was bad enough in
the nursery, where the tea, that nobody had cared to touch, was set out
as neatly as usual on the table; the chairs drawn round, the one that
Baby always had with a footstool on it--to make up for there being no
high chair at the Villa--in its place, though the well-known, funny
little figure was not perched on it. And Lisa, with a face swollen so
that no one wo