being now far advanced, Lucy was expected home every minute, and Michael,
Agnes, and Isabel, her father, mother, and aunt, went to meet her on the
way. They walked on and on, wondering a little, but in no degree alarmed
till they reached Ladyside, and heard the cheerful din of the children
within, still rioting at the close of the holiday. Jacob Mayne came to the
door, but, on their kindly asking why Lucy had not been sent home before
daylight was over, he looked painfully surprised, and said that she had
not been at Ladyside.

5. Within two hours, a hundred persons were traversing the hills in all
directions, even at a distance which it seemed most unlikely that poor
Lucy could have reached. The shepherds and their dogs, all the night
through, searched every nook, every stony and rocky place, every piece of
taller heather, every crevice that could conceal anything alive or dead:
but no Lucy was there.

6. Her mother, who for a while seemed inspired with supernatural strength,
had joined in the search, and with a quaking heart looked into every
brake, or stopped and listened to every shout and halloo reverberating
among the hills, intent to seize upon some tone of recognition or
discovery. But the moon sank; and then the stars, whose increased
brightness had for a short time supplied her place, all faded away; and
then came the gray dawn of the morning, and then the clear brightness of
the day,--and still Michael and Agnes were childless.

7. "She has sunk into some mossy or miry place," said Michael, to a man
near him, into whose face he could not look, "a cruel, cruel death to one
like her! The earth on which my child walked has closed over her, and we
shall never see her more!"