le boy playing by the
pond, however, declared that he had seen a woman crossing the field and
climbing over the fence on to the road. Wendy returned with this report.
Miss Carr looked annoyed.

"We must go along the road, then, and follow her. We can't wait here
till she chooses to come back."

So Diana carried the baby, and Wendy led Lady and Topsy, and Miss Carr,
with an anxious wrinkle between her eyebrows, followed with Baron in the
direction that the small boy had pointed out. They walked a mile, and
enquired at cottages and from passers-by, and from men working in the
fields, but nobody had seen the gipsy woman. Then they went back to the
trysting-place to see if she had returned, but she was not there. They
asked again at the farm, and went back to the cottages, and Miss Carr
begged to leave the baby there, because its mother would be sure to
enquire for it and find it. The occupants of the cottages, however,
shook their heads, and were not at all prepared to accept the
responsibility. Neither were the people at the farm. They utterly
refused to take it in. Then Diana realized that it is one thing to offer
to nurse a baby, and quite another to get rid of it again. What were
they to do?

"We can't dump the poor mite down by the roadside and leave it," said
Miss Carr distractedly. "Whatever _can_ have become of its mother?"

No answer was forthcoming to her question, and matters were urgent. She
decided that the only thing to be done was to take the baby with them to
Pendlemere, leaving messages at the farm and the cottages for the mother
to follow on and claim it. Naturally it made a great sensation in the
school when Diana arrived holding her foundling in her arms. Miss Carr
explained at full length to Miss Todd, who was utterly aghast, but
consented to take in the small stranger till it was claimed. Miss
Chadwick, who had studied hygiene at the Agricultural College, and had
once assisted at a creche, constituted herself head nurse, mixed a
bottle, and left Miss Ormrod to feed the fowls while she sat in a
rocking-chair and soothed the foundling to sleep.

"Surely the mother'll turn up before dark," she said.

But nobody turned up, and Miss Chadwick, who had had to guess at the
baby's age and requirements, and had mixed too strong a bottle, spent a
wakeful night patting her small guest on the back and endeavouring to
still her wails. Next morning Miss Todd reported the matter at the
police station, enquirie