ere are the twins?"

"On the moor; they all went out with father."

"Which moor, the South or Peg-Top?"

"I think the South moor."

"All right, I'm going out too. What's the matter, Fly? Oh, you're not to
come."

"Please, please, it's so horrid in the house, and Bunny does make my
dress so soppy with crying into it."

"You're not to come. You are to stay here and do your best, your very
best, for father and the others when they come home. If they don't meet
me, say I've gone to look for baby and for Flower. I'll come back when
I've found them. If _they_ find baby and Flower, they might ask to have
the church bells rung, then I'll know. Don't stare at me like that, Fly;
it was my fault, so I must search until I find them."

Polly ran out of the house and down the lawn. Once again she was out on
the moor. The great solitary commons stretched to right and left; they
were everywhere, they filled the whole horizon, except just where Sleepy
Hollow lay, with its belt of trees, its cultivated gardens, and just
beyond the little village and the church with the square, gray tower.
There was a great lump in Polly's throat, and a mist before her eyes.
The dreadful beating was still going on in her heart, and the surging,
ceaseless waves of sound in her ears.

Suddenly she fell on her knees.

"Please, God, give me back little Pearl. Please, God, save little Pearl.
I don't want anything else; I don't even want father to forgive me, if
You will save little Pearl."

Most earnest prayers bring a sense of comfort, and Polly did not feel
quite so lonely when she stood again on her feet, with the bracken and
the fern all round her.

She tried hard now to collect her thoughts; she made a valiant effort to
feel calm and reasonable.

"I can do nothing if I get so excited," she said to herself. "I must
just fight with my anxious spirit. My heart must stay quiet, for my
brain has got to work now. Let me see! where has Flower taken baby?
Father and Nell and the others are all searching the South moor, so I
will go on to Peg-Top. I will walk slowly, and I will look behind every
clump of trees, and I will call Flower's name now and then; for I am
sure, I am quite, quite sure that, however dreadful her passion may have
been, if Flower is the least like me, she will be dreadfully sorry by
now--dreadfully sorry and dreadfully frightened--so if she hears me
calling she will be sure to answer. Oh, dear! oh, dear! here is my heart
speaki