nd that's
all about it."

Robbie could not understand how it could be, but he saw that his
mother was in great trouble, and he did not like to ask any
questions.

"This will not do," Mrs. McDougall said, with a heavy sigh, as she
rose resolutely from her chair, and began bustling about. "You
shouldn't ha' got up yet, Robbie. It's over early for you."

"I thought it was late," Robbie said. "Mother," he added eagerly,
"might I--oh! might I run and fetch the milk for you? Oh, do just let
me go!"

[Illustration: "THE CHILD GLANCED AT HER WONDERINGLY" (_p. 264._)]

"Dear me! no, child," Mrs. McDougall replied. "You'd be lost too."

"Should I?" Robbie said, very crestfallen. "Can't I do nothing,
mother?"

"Yes; you shall feed the hens. You know how to do that, don't you,
Robbie? I'll just get the food ready for them."

Robbie was delighted. He longed to be useful.

Mrs. McDougall bustled about, and got the breakfast--porridge without
milk--set everything in order, then went up to see to her mother,
just as if nothing had happened. She was not the woman to sit idly
nursing her troubles.

As soon as she had partaken of a little food, she prepared to depart
once more on her anxious errand, with many an injunction to Robbie
not to go outside the gate, and to keep a watch, in case Elsie and
Duncan might return, but be afraid to enter.

At the police-station there was no news. Bills were being printed,
she was informed, and would be widely distributed before the day was
out. Any information they received should be sent to her.

She waited for more than an hour in order to see the bill. It was
some sort of consolation to her to see the great black letters, and
read the description of the children in black and white.

"This cannot fail to find them," the officer told her. "Every police
office in the country will be furnished with this description. The
children can't have got very far away. Some of our men must come
across them."

"Far enough away to have got beyond our reach," Mrs. McDougall said,
dubiously. "And who knows but they may have fallen into bad hands, or
got stuck in some bog in the blackness of the night?" she added, with
a shudder.

"They'd keep fast enough to the road," the man said, re-assuringly.

"I'd rather ten times over that they should be lying dead in the
woods or on a mountain side than that they should fall into the hands
of wicked men and women!" Mrs. McDougall said fervently. "The merc