tints, and its general intimate air of sharing mutual jokes and secrets. She turned around half a dozen times to look upon it, as they climbed the steep hill, and when at last it dipped below sight she sighed.
“I hate to leave it. I have the oddest feeling, Ilse, that it’s calling to me—that I ought to go back to it.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Ilse impatiently. “There—it’s sprinkling now! If you hadn’t poked so long looking at your blessed little hut we’d have been out on the main road now, and near shelter. Wow, but it’s cold!”
“It’s going to be a dreadful night,” said Emily in a low voice. “Oh, Ilse, where is that poor little lost boy tonight? I wish I knew if they had found him.”
“Don’t!” said Ilse savagely. “Don’t say another word about him. It’s awful—it’s hideous—but what can we do?”
“Nothing. That’s the dreadful thing about it. It seems wicked to go on about our own business, asking for subscriptions, when that child is not found.”
By this time they had reached the main road. The rest of the afternoon was not pleasant. Stinging showers came at intervals: between them the world was raw and damp and cold, with a moaning wind that came in ominous sighing gusts under a leaden sky. At every house where they called they were reminded of the lost baby, for there were only women to give or refuse subscriptions. The men were all away searching for him.
“Though it isn’t any use now,” said one woman gloomily, “except that they may find his little body. He can’t have lived this long. I jest can’t eat or cook for thinking of his poor mother. They say she’s nigh crazy—I don’t wonder.”
“They say old Margaret McIntyre is taking it quite calmly,” said an older woman, who was piecing a logcabin quilt by the window. “I’d have thought she’d be wild, too. She seemed real fond of little Allan.”
“Oh, Margaret McIntyre has never got worked up about anything for the past five years—ever since her
