el of it!" they replied, looking into the very midst
of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way down his throat.

"What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving his
hands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left ear
quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a magpie all alone!"

"Fanny Robin--Miss Everdene's youngest servant--can't be found.
They've been wanting to lock up the door these two hours, but she
isn't come in. And they don't know what to do about going to bed for
fear of locking her out. They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't
been noticed in such low spirits these last few days, and Maryann d'
think the beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poor
girl."

"Oh--'tis burned--'tis burned!" came from Joseph Poorgrass's dry
lips.

"No--'tis drowned!" said Tall.

"Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury, with a vivid
sense of detail.

"Well--Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us before we go
to bed. What with this trouble about the baily, and now about the
girl, mis'ess is almost wild."

They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old
maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw from
his hole. There, as the others' footsteps died away he sat down
again and continued gazing as usual into the furnace with his red,
bleared eyes.

From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba's head and
shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the
air.

"Are any of my men among you?" she said anxiously.

"Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tall's husband.

"To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in
the villages round if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin.
Do it quietly; there is no reason for alarm as yet. She must have
left whilst we were all at the fire."

"I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the
parish, ma'am?" asked Jacob Smallbury.

"I don't know," said Bathsheba.

"I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am," said two or three.

"It is hardly likely, either," continued Bathsheba. "For any lover
of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable
lad. The most mysterious matter connected with her absence--indeed,
the only thing which gives me serious alarm--is that she was seen
to go out of the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown
on--not even a bonnet."

"And you mean, ma'a