"Well, my chick-a-biddies," he said, in a delightfully genial voice, beaming upon them all with the kindest blue eyes Mollie had ever seen, "and what has everybody been doing? And where is Grizzel?"

As he spoke he lifted Baby into his arms, ignoring the jammy little fingers, laid a hand on Mollie's head, and looked round inquiringly for his missing daughter.

"She's in my Nest," Hugh replied, "it's finished. Come and see it.

You can't climb into it yet, but it looks very nice from the outside. I think I'll arrange a box to pull you and Mamma up in. The zinc-lined box the piano came in would do."

"Thank you, my son," said Papa kindly, "thank you, thank you. At the moment I am rather pressed for time. I have to meet Mamma at Mrs.

Taylor's at half-past five, and we are going to the town-hall to hear this wonderful new telephone, as they call it. They say that someone speaking from the post office at Glenelg will be perfectly audible in the town-hall here, a distance of six and a half miles.

It sounds almost incredible. What will they discover next! Truly this is an amazing age, and you children may live to see men flying yet."

Hugh had left his gingerbread, which lay forgotten on his plate, and stood before his father flushed with excitement:

"Take me with you, _do_, Papa," he cried. "I'll learn reams of Latin and get up at four o'clock and--"

"Well, get your hat and be quick then," Papa interrupted indulgently. "Prue, my pet, look in my bag and you will find five parcels, one for each young robber. Be fair and amiable, my children. Come, Hugh. Good night, Papa's little angel." He kissed Baby, handed her over to Prudence, put on his hat again, and was off down the wide path between the cypress trees with Hugh hanging on his arm, in less than no time.

"Let's watch from the gate," said Prudence. "Bridget will take Baby.

Hurry up, Mollie."

They reached the foot of the garden just in time to see Papa's tall hat disappear round the corner of the road. It was a lovely evening, and the girls lingered by the gate; the scent of violets and freesias rose from the flowerbed at their feet, and every now and again came a whiff of something else--something exquisitely fragrant and delicate.

"What's that?" asked Mollie, with an unladylike sniff; "that lovely smell?"

"It's wattle," Prudence answered. "It's in the fields over there.

You can smell it for miles sometimes, in the country; it's a nice smell. Let's go and look at Papa's parcels. He went to see Mrs.

Macfarline at her toyshop to-day, and when he goes there he always brings something home. It's a beautiful shop. Once I stayed with Lucy Macfarline from Sat.u.r.day till Monday, and her mamma allowed us to play in the shop on Sunday; it was so funny, all dark and dim, and the dolls looking like little ghosts. We played with the toys on the shelves and had a lovely time. I love shops--oh, Mollie, we have forgotten Grizzel! She is up in the tree all this time! We must run and get her down. I hope Hugh hasn't hidden the ladder--I wish he wouldn't tease so."

"All brothers do," Mollie said philosophically. "d.i.c.k is simply the limit sometimes, but I do wish we could get him over here, Prudence.

Do you think we could?"

"I'll think. But first we must find that ladder."

As they neared the tree Prudence called to her sister that they were coming, but got no answer. They jumped the low wall and stood underneath the tree, nearly dislocating their necks in their efforts to see some sign of life in the little house. But Grizzel neither answered nor showed herself, in spite of Prue's eloquent description of Papa's parcels and denunciations of their brother.

"Perhaps she is having her evening hate," suggested Mollie.

"She does take awful fits of the sulks sometimes," Prudence allowed, "but I don't think she would be sulky with _me_ just now; it wasn't me that stole the ladder--oh _bother_ that Hugh! We had better go and look for it as fast as we can. I wonder where he has hidden it?"

"It can't be far away, because he was only gone for a few minutes at tea-time," Mollie remarked sensibly. "Very likely it is simply lying on the ground behind the wall."

That was precisely where it was, and without much trouble the girls got it into place again, and Prudence mounted quickly. She disappeared through the little door, but in one moment appeared again with a frightened face.

"She's not here, Mollie. She's gone."

"Gone!" Mollie exclaimed incredulously. "She can't be gone! How could she get down without the ladder? She must be up in the tree."

"No, she isn't. I can see every branch from here; there is not a single place where she could hide."

"But she _must_ be up there somewhere," Mollie persisted. "If she had fallen out she would be lying round somewhere. There is no way she _could_ get down without the ladder. She is so nervous. I'll come up too and look."

"You may come, but you won't see anything," Prudence said, steadying her end of the ladder while Mollie climbed.

The Nest was certainly empty. The little blue bird must have found wings and flown, Mollie thought. She looked up and down and round about, but not a vestige of Grizzel was there to be seen. Then she called her Scouting lore to her aid, and set her wits to work.

"The basket has gone too, and there is no orange peel anywhere, but the _Swiss Family Robinson_ is there on the book-shelf. So she did not go in a great hurry, because she tidied up first. Let us go to the Look-out and see if we can catch sight of her blue frock. She may be hiding quite near and laughing at us all the time."

They climbed to the Look-out and anxiously scanned all the visible parts of the garden, but nowhere was there a morsel of blue pinafore or red curls to be seen.

"We had better get down," Prudence said, "and search the garden properly; I'll ask Bridget to come and help us. What I can't understand is how she got down at all, and, if she _was_ down, why she didn't come to meet Papa. She always meets him; always, always.

Whoever doesn't meet him Grizzel always does."

Bridget laughed at their fears, but under her laugh Mollie could detect a tone of anxiety, and when house and garden had been searched in vain, Bridget and Prudence faced each other in silence.

Then Prue spoke out the fear which Mollie had not understood:

"The blacks have come to town; I saw their wurlies yesterday when we left the Gardens."

"Away wid ye, Miss Prudence," Bridget scoffed. "An' what for wud the blacks be touchin' Grizzel? Isn't yur Pa the kindest gintleman in the whole wurrld to thim, dirrty things they be!"

"Old Sammy was angry because Mamma would not give him a new blanket last time he came," Prudence answered, her face pale with anxiety and tears not far away. "He just goes and sells them, that's what he does, and buys whisky. He followed me all down the road one day when I was alone, and jabbered away till his wife came and hauled him off."

There was a troubled silence while Bridget and Prue considered the next step to take. Mollie felt that this problem was beyond her powers of solving. Then a sudden thought struck her:

"Where's Laddie? We haven't seen him either."

"Praise be!" exclaimed Bridget. "The dog'll be wid Grizzel, an'

that's sure. Blessin's on ye for the thought, Miss Mollie, for it's scared I was an' there's no use denyin'."

"Thank goodness! If the blacks had come Laddie would have barked,"

Prudence said, taking a long breath of relief. "How on earth did I not miss him myself!"

"Your mind was so full of Grizzel you had no room for another thought, but now--where is she, and how did she get down?"

"We _must_ find her before Mamma comes home. Mollie, you are clever; think some more."

Mollie thought her hardest, but, as she explained, it was difficult to make suggestions when she knew neither Grizzel nor the surroundings very well. "She had no hat on; let us go and see if she has taken a hat. Would she be likely to go out without one?"

No, they said, going out without a hat was unheard of. So a search was inst.i.tuted in the girl's room, and to their relief Grizzel's garden hat was missing--somehow, even to Mollie, it seemed less alarming to be missing with a hat than without one. In fact, if it had not been for the mystery of the tree--which certainly _was_ very inexplicable--Mollie would not have disturbed herself. Grizzel had gone out, wearing her hat, carrying her basket, and accompanied by the large and capable Laddie. Most likely she would come back presently with some simple explanation to account for everything.

"I think she has gone for a walk. She got down somehow and ran off to give Hugh a fright. Let's go and look for her along the road,"

was Mollie's next proposal.

"If she has gone for a walk she will most likely come home by the lane, unless she went over to the parklands--oh, I wish she would come back! She never goes out alone in town, because she is frightened of meeting Things. She says there are all sorts of Things in town. Once she got lost in a big crowd, and I think it made her rather nervous. Besides, Mamma will be angry if she is not home when they come in, and we'll get such scoldings." Prudence sighed and looked longingly towards the white gate, but there was no sign of the wanderer's return.

"Suppose we go to the Look-out and reconnoitre, and if we see her we can go and meet her," said Mollie.

This seemed a good idea, so they climbed the ladder once more, and, one behind the other, scrambled to the top of the tree. But twilight was already creeping over the land--the brief Australian twilight which turns to darkness so quickly. It was impossible to see any distance, and the girls were turning their backs on the flagpole when Prudence stopped with an exclamation:

"I think I will light the lantern. Grizzel will see it from a long way off. Look in the house for matches, Mollie, while I turn the red gla.s.ses both ways."