the poultry yard, and lowering
his piece of string on the other side as a means of exasperating the
turkey cock.

"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a
distressed voice.

"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had
diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought
about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.

"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round.

"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently
indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey cock.

"Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could
you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was
dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done."

It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his misdemeanor,
somehow or other, to Maggie.

The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear in
Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse block to satisfy herself
by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very quickly--on
his way toward her.

"They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud, without
reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be brought in
dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far enough."

But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom
returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took
complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.

"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone away."

You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty of
convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet observed
that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there was no
knowing; and Mr. Pullet reached down a key to the goose-pen as a likely
place for Maggie to lie concealed in.

Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home, and the
suggestion was seized as a comfort by his mother.

"Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the carriage and
take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk in
her dirty clothes," she said, looking at that innocent victim, who was
wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.

Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring
her premises to order and quiet, a