And Grandmamma’s voice quavered with the last words.  It was not the first time she had seen Barbara since the children’s disappearance, for they were old friends, and the cake woman had hurried up to Arbitt Lodge at once on hearing of the sad trouble that had befallen its inmates, to express her concern and see if maybe she could be of any use.

“Yes, indeed, ma’am.  I can well understand it,” she said.  “How you bear up as you do is just wonderful.  I’m sure I can’t get it out of my mind for a moment.  I keep seeing them as they passed by that last afternoon.  Nurse was a bit vexed with them—­missy’s frock was torn and——­”

“Yes,” interrupted Grandmamma—­Grandpapa seeing her occupied had at last made up his mind to open his newspaper—­“Yes, I was thinking of that.  They told us about it, and they asked what it meant to be ’a great charge;’ they had heard Nurse say that to you.  She is a good woman, I feel sure, Barbara, but perhaps she is a little too strict.  I have got it so on my mind that they had some little trouble they did not like to tell about, and that that, somehow, has had to do with it all.”

“You don’t mean, ma’am, that such tiny trots as that would have run away on purpose?” said Barbara in surprise.  “Oh no, they’d never have done that.”

“No, I do not mean that exactly,” said Grandmamma.  “I do not think I know rightly what I mean.  Dear, dear, I wish Dymock would keep Toby away,” she added.  “You don’t know how he startles me—­every time he comes close to me I fancy somehow it is the children,” and Grandmamma looked so uneasy and nervous that Barbara quietly took up the little dog and put him out of the room.  “And, Barbara, you had no reason for coming to see me?  Except, of course—­I was forgetting—­that you are going away.”

“Only for a few days, ma’am,” Barbara replied.  “I had a letter from my niece—­leastways from her husband—­the niece who lives over near Monkhaven—­yesterday.  She’s been very ill, ma’am,—­very ill indeed, and though she’s getting better it would be a great comfort to her to see me, and maybe spirit her up a bit to get well quicker.  So I’m just setting off—­I’ve locked up my cottage and left the key next door.  But I couldn’t start without looking in again to see if maybe you had any news.”

“No, no—­nothing,” replied Grandmamma.  “And I feel as if I couldn’t bear much more.  I am breaking up, Barbara; a few days more will see the last of me, my old friend, if they bring no tidings.”

Barbara’s eyes filled with tears, but she said nothing.—­She had exhausted all her attempts at comfort, all her “perhaps"’s, and “maybe"’s as to what had become of the children; and though she was a very cheerful and hopeful old woman, she was also very sympathising, and it made her dreadfully sad to see Grandmamma so changed and cast down.

“It goes to my heart, ma’am, to see you so,” she got out at last.  “I know there’s nothing I can do, but all the same I wish I weren’t going away just now, though the few days will soon be past.”