be lost in Mercer," he reassured David's mother.

"Well, whether they've run away or not, come into my room and
talk about it like a sensible woman," said Mrs. Maitland; "what's
the use of sitting on the stairs? Women have such a way of
sitting on stairs when things go wrong! Suppose they are lost.
What harm's done? They'll turn up. Come!" Mrs. Richie came.
Everybody "came" or went, or stood still, when Mrs. Maitland said
the word! And though not commanded, Mr. Ferguson came too.

In the dining-room Mrs. Maitland took no part in the perplexed
discussion that followed. At her desk, in her revolving chair,
she had instinctively taken up her pen; there was a perceptible
instant in which she got her mind off her own affairs and put it
on this matter of the children. Then she laid the pen down, and
turned around to face the other two; but idleness irritated her,
and she reached for a ball of pink worsted skewered by bone
needles. She asked no questions and made no comments, but
knitting rapidly, listened, until apparently her patience came to
an end; then with a grunt she whirled round to her desk and again
picked up her pen. But as she did so she paused, pen in air;
threw it down, and pounding the flat of her hand on her desk,
laughed loudly:

"I know! I know!" And revolving back again in leisurely relief to
face them, she said, with open amusement: "When I came home this
afternoon, I found this drawer half open and the bills in my
cash-box disturbed. They've"--her voice was suddenly drowned in
the rumble of a train on the spur track; the house shook
slightly, and a gust of black smoke was vomited against the