e speak!"

Nurse Chapman got up about half-past nine, and, hearing the children
were not returned from their walk, sent the housemaid directly after
them.

The garden, the shrubbery, and the lawn were all searched without
success; and just as Betty was returning to inform the nurse they were
not to be found, she perceived Susan and the two children enter a
little green gate at the bottom of the shrubbery.

"Where's Miss Eliza?" called Betty, in a voice as loud as she could
articulate.

"God knows! God knows!" replied the careless girl, sobbing so loud she
could scarcely speak.

"How! where! when!" said the others. "Why, poor nurse will go stark,
staring mad!"

By that time the poor woman had quitted her room, and walked into the
garden to see what had become of her little charges; and, not directly
missing Eliza from the group, which was then fast approaching towards
the house, she called out:

"Come, my dear children--come along! I thought you would never have
returned again." And, observing Eliza was not with them, she
continued: "But, Susan, what's become of my sweet bird? Where's my
little darling, Miss Eliza?"

"Oh, nurse! nurse!" said Sophia, "my sister's lost! indeed she's
lost!"

"Lost!" exclaimed the poor old woman--"lost! What do you tell me? What
do I hear? Oh, my master! my dear master! never shall I bear to see
his face again!"

Susan then repeated every circumstance just as has been related, and
with sighs and tears bewailed her own folly in suffering herself to be
over-persuaded. And the children declared they dare not encounter
their father's displeasure.

The men servants were instantly summoned and sent on horseback
different ways. That she had been stolen admitted of no doubt, as
there was no water near the cottage; and had any accident happened,
they must have found her, as they had searched every part of the
village before they ventured to return home.

One servant was sent to Rochester, another towards London, and a third
and fourth across the country roads; but no intelligence could be
obtained, nor the slightest information gathered, by which the
unfortunate child could be found, or her wicked decoyer's footsteps
traced.

When Mr. Darnley was apprised of the calamitous event, the agitation
of his mind may be easily conceived, but can never be described.

Handbills were instantly circulated all over the country, the child's
person described, and a reward of five hundred guinea