boat come and go. They had listened curiously to the voices of the
man and boy on board chatting to each other, or shouting to the patient,
plodding horse that towed along the clumsy craft, laden with this and
that for the villages and hamlets that dotted the landscape thickly
between Firdale and the far-off range of hills, which rose so proudly up
to meet the sunset and the sky.

The October day was mild, and bright as days not always are, even in
midsummer. Great gold-tinged clouds floated slowly across the high, wide
dome of the azure sky. The hilltops were bathed in a warm, soft glow;
the placid waters of the canal sparkled, dimpled, and smiled beneath the
caress of the passing breeze, until they broke into tiny ripples and
wavelets against their sedge-grown banks.

Along that silvery waterway they shall go, the children decide. Up
there, beyond the hills, they say, rise the walls of the Beautiful
City. That radiance is assuredly reflected from its streets of gold.
Those big, fleecy clouds certainly curtain the approach to the portals
of pearl!

Just then, emerging from behind a screening clump of trees, the _Smiling
Jane_, as the dingy old boat was called, slowly hove in sight. They
would run fast and coax the man to take them on board when he stopped to
get his vessel through the lock; or, better still, they would slip in
unnoticed when he was otherwise engaged. Without a thought of wrong,
with never a qualm of fear as to failure or consequences, hand in hand
they raced along in the direction of the canal, casting not so much as a
glance behind.

And thus it came about that Darby and Joan set out to seek the Happy
Land.

CHAPTER V.

GONE AMISSING!

"The old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.

"I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there."

LONGFELLOW.

When dinner-time came without bringing the children in, nurse became
very cross indeed. Baby had been somewhat troublesome all the forenoon.
Auntie Alice had lately got into the habit of taking him of a morning,
walking him about in her arms, crooning sweet nothings over him in her
soothing voice. He was old enough to miss her, and to-day was not
satisfied at being put off with only nurse. He had, besides, a new tooth
coming--a tiny pearly thing, peep