sat down, quite faint, for a minute. I remember, a few days after,
I saw the poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf
heap, to decay and die there. There was no making of cowslip wine
that year at the rectory--nor, indeed, ever after.

"Presently my mother went to my father. I know I thought of Queen
Esther and King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and
delicate-looking, and my father looked as terrible as King
Ahasuerus. Some time after they came out together; and then my
mother told me what had happened, and that she was going up to
Peter's room at my father's desire--though she was not to tell
Peter this--to talk the matter over with him. But no Peter was
there. We looked over the house; no Peter was there! Even my
father, who had not liked to join in the search at first, helped us
before long. The rectory was a very old house--steps up into a
room, steps down into a room, all through. At first, my mother
went calling low and soft, as if to reassure the poor boy, 'Peter!
Peter, dear! it's only me;' but, by-and-by, as the servants came
back from the errands my father had sent them, in different
directions, to find where Peter was--as we found he was not in the
garden, nor the hayloft, nor anywhere about--my mother's cry grew
louder and wilder, Peter! Peter, my darling! where are you?' for
then she felt and understood that that long kiss meant some sad
kind of 'good-bye.' The afternoon went on--my mother never
resting, but seeking again and again in every possible place that
had been looked into twenty times before, nay, that she had looked
into over and over again herself. My father sat with his head in
his hands, not speaking except when his messengers came in,
bringing no tidings; then he lifted up his face, so strong and sad,
and told them to go again in some new direction. My mother kept