"There, I have silenced her for a bit; I do hate the way she talks about charity children. Whatever her faults, Annie is the sweetest and prettiest girl in the school, in my opinion."

In the meantime Hester was looking in all directions for Susan Drummond.

She thought the present a very fitting opportunity to open her attack on her, and she was the more anxious to bring her to reason as a certain look in Annie's face--a pallid and very weary look--had gone to her heart, and touched her in spite of herself. Now, even though little Nan loved her, Hester would save Annie could she do so not at her own expense.

Look, however, as she would, nowhere could she find Miss Drummond. She called and called, but no sleepy voice replied. Susan, indeed, knew better; she had curled herself up in a hammock which hung between the boughs of a shady tree, and though Hester pa.s.sed under her very head, she was sucking lollipops and going off comfortably into the land of dreams, and had no intention of replying. Hester wandered down the shady walk, and at its farther end she was gratified by the sight of little Nan, who, under her nurse's charge, was trying to string daisies on the gra.s.s.

Hester sat down by her side, and Nan climbed over and made fine havoc of her neat print dress, and laughed, and was at her merriest and best.

"I hear say that that naughty Miss Forest has done something out-and-out disgraceful," whispered the nurse.

"Oh, don't!" said Hester impatiently. "Why should every one throw mud at a girl when she is down? If poor Annie is naughty and guilty, she is suffering now."

"Annie _not_ naughty," said little Nan. "Me love my own Annie; me do, me do."

"And you love your own poor old nurse, too?" responded the somewhat jealous nurse.

Hester left the two playing happily together, the little one caressing her nurse, and blowing one or two kisses after her sister's retreating form. Hester returned to the house, and went up to her room to prepare for dinner. She had washed her hands, and was standing before the looking-gla.s.s re-plaiting her long hair, when Susan Drummond, looking extremely wild and excited, and with her eyes almost starting out of her head, rushed into the room.

"Oh, Hester, Hester!" she gasped, and she flung herself on Hester's bed, with her face downward; she seemed absolutely deprived for the moment of the power of any further speech.

"What is the matter, Susan?" inquired Hester half impatiently. "What have you come into my room for? Are you going into a fit of hysterics? You had better control yourself, for the dinner gong will sound directly."

Susan gasped two or three times, made a rush to Hester's wash-hand stand, and, taking up a gla.s.s, poured some cold water into it, and gulped it down.

"Now I can speak," she said. "I ran so fast that my breath quite left me.

Hester, put on your walking things or go without them, just as you please--only go at once if you would save her."

"Save whom?" asked Hester.

"Your little sister--little Nan. I--I saw it all. I was in the hammock, and n.o.body knew I was there, and somehow I wasn't so sleepy as usual, and I heard Nan's voice, and I looked over the side of the hammock, and she was sitting on the gra.s.s picking daisies, and her nurse was with her, and presently you came up. I heard you calling me, but I wasn't going to answer. I felt too comfortable. You stayed with Nan and her nurse for a little, and then went away; and I heard Nan's nurse say to her: 'Sit here, missy, till I come back to you; I am going to fetch another reel of sewing cotton from the house. Sit still, missy; I'll be back directly.'

She went away, and Nan went on picking her daisies. All on a sudden I heard Nan give a sharp little cry, and I looked over the hammock, and there was a tall, dark woman, with such a wicked face, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed up Nan in her arms, and put a thick shawl over her face, and ran off with her. It was all done in an instant. I shouted and I scrambled out of the hammock, and I rushed down the path; but there wasn't a sign of anybody there. I don't know where the woman went--it seemed as if the earth swallowed up both her and little Nan. Why, Hester, are you going to faint?"

"Water!" gasped Hester--"one sip--now let me go."

CHAPTER XL.

A GYPSY MAID.

In a few moments every one in Lavender House was made acquainted with Susan's story. At such a time ceremony was laid aside, dinner forgotten, teachers, pupils, servants all congregated in the grounds, all rushed to the spot where Nan's withered daisies still lay, all peered through the underwood, and all, alas! looked in vain for the tall dark woman and the little child. Little Nan, the baby of the school, had been stolen--there were loud and terrified lamentations. Nan's nurse was almost tearing her hair, was rushing frantically here, there, and everywhere. No one blamed the nurse for leaving her little charge in apparent safety for a few moments, but the poor woman's own distress was pitiable to see. Mrs.

Willis took Hester's hand, and told the poor stunned girl that she was sending to Sefton immediately for two or three policemen, and that in the meantime every man on the place should commence the search for the woman and child.

"Without any doubt," Mrs. Willis added, "we shall soon have our little Nan back again; it is quite impossible that the woman, whoever she is, can have taken her so far away in so short a time."

In the meantime, Annie in her bedroom heard the fuss and the noise. She leaned out of her window and saw Phyllis in the distance; she called to her. Phyllis ran up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh, something so dreadful!" she gasped; "a wicked, wicked woman has stolen little Nan Thornton. She ran off with her just where the undergrowth is so thick at the end of the shady walk. It happened to her half an hour ago, and they are all looking, but they cannot find the woman or little Nan anywhere. Oh, it is so dreadful! Is that you, Mary?"

Phyllis ran off to join her sister, and Annie put her head in again, and looked round her pretty room.

"The gypsy," she murmured, "the tall, dark gypsy has taken little Nan!"

Her face was very white, her eyes shone, her lips expressed a firm and almost obstinate determination. With all her usual impulsiveness, she decided on a course of action--she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of paper and scribbled a hasty line:

"DEAR MOTHER-FRIEND:--However badly you think of Annie, Annie loves you with all her heart. Forgive me, I must go myself to look for little Nan. That tall, dark woman is a gypsy--I have seen her before; her name is Mother Rachel. Tell Hetty I won't return until I bring her little sister back.--Your repentant and sorrowful

ANNIE."

Annie twisted up the note, directed it to Mrs. Willis, and left it on her dressing-table.

Then, with a wonderful amount of forethought for her, she emptied the contents of a little purse into a tiny gingham bag, which she fastened inside the front of her dress. She put on her shady hat, and threw a shawl across her arm, and then, slipping softly downstairs, she went out through the deserted kitchens, down the back avenue, and past the laurel bush, until she came to the stile which led into the wood--she was going straight to the gypsies' encampment.

Annie, with some of the gypsy's characteristics in her own blood, had always taken an extraordinary interest in these queer wandering people.

Gypsies had a fascination for her, she loved stories about them; if a gypsy encampment was near, she always begged the teachers to walk in that direction. Annie had a very vivid imagination, and in the days when she reigned as favorite in the school she used to make up stories for the express benefit of her companions. These stories, as a rule, always turned upon the gypsies. Many and many a time had the girls of Lavender House almost gasped with horror as Annie described the queer ways of these people. For her, personally, their wildness and their freedom had a certain fascination, and she was heard in her gayest moments to remark that she would rather like to be stolen and adopted by a gypsy tribe.

Whenever Annie had an opportunity, she chatted with the gypsy wives, and allowed them to tell her fortune, and listened eagerly to their narratives. When a little child she had once for several months been under the care of a nurse who was a reclaimed gypsy, and this girl had given her all kinds of information about them. Annie often felt that she quite loved these wild people, and Mother Rachel was the first gypsy she cordially shrank from and disliked.

When the little girl started now on her wild-goose chase after Nan, she was by no means devoid of a plan of action. The knowledge she had taken so many years to acquire came to her aid, and she determined to use it for Nan's benefit. She knew that the gypsies, with all their wandering and erratic habits, had a certain attachment, if not for homes, at least for sites; she knew that as a rule they encamped over and over again in the same place; she knew that their wanderings were conducted with method, and their apparently lawless lives governed by strict self-made rules.

Annie made straight now for the encampment, which stood in a little dell at the other side of the fairies' field. Here for weeks past the gypsies'

tents had been seen; here the gypsy children had played, and the men and women smoked and lain about in the sun.

Annie entered the small field now, but uttered no exclamation of surprise when she found that all the tents, with the exception of one, had been removed, and that this tent also was being rapidly taken down by a man and a girl, while a tall boy stood by, holding a donkey by the bridle.

Annie wasted no time in looking for Nan here. Before the girl and the man could see her, she darted behind a bush, and removing her little bag of money, hid it carefully under some long gra.s.s; then she pulled a very bright yellow sash out of her pocket, tied it round her blue cotton dress, and leaving her little shawl also on the ground, tripped gaily up to the tent.

She saw with pleasure that the girl who was helping the man was about her own size. She went up and touched her on the shoulder.

"Look here," she said, "I want to make such a pretty play by-and-by--I want to play that I'm a gypsy girl. Will you give me your clothes, if I give you mine? See, mine are neat, and this sash is very handsome. Will you have them? Do. I am so anxious to play at being a gypsy."

The girl turned and stared. Annie's pretty blue print and gay sash were certainly tempting bait. She glanced at her father.

"The little lady wants to change," she said in an eager voice.

The man nodded acquiescence, and the girl taking Annie's hand, ran quickly with her to the bottom of the field.

"You don't mean it, surely?" she said. "Eh, but I'm uncommon willing."

"Yes, I certainly mean it," said Annie. "You are a dear, good, obliging girl, and how nice you will look in my pretty blue cotton! I like that striped petticoat of yours, too, and that gay handkerchief you wear round your shoulders. Thank you so very much. Now, do I look like a real, real gypsy?"

"Your hair ain't ragged enough, miss."

"Oh, clip it, then; clip it away. I want to be quite the real thing. Have you got a pair of scissors?"

The girl ran back to the tent, and presently returned to shear poor Annie's beautiful hair in truly rough fashion.