the rectory--you know he was Miss Pole's cousin--and he had been
very kind to Peter, and taught him how to fish--he was very kind to
everybody, and I thought Peter might have gone off there. But Mr
Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never been seen. It was
night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my father and
mother walked on and on; it was more than an hour since he had
joined her, and I don't believe they had ever spoken all that time.
I was getting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was
preparing tea, for I wanted them to have something to eat and drink
and warm them, when old Clare asked to speak to me.

"'I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty. Shall we
drag the ponds to-night, or wait for the morning?'

"I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I
did, I laughed out loud. The horror of that new thought--our
bright, darling Peter, cold, and stark, and dead! I remember the
ring of my own laugh now.

"The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again. She
would not have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my
screams (my horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my
sweet dear mother, whose poor wandering wits were called back and
collected as soon as a child needed her care. She and Deborah sat
by my bedside; I knew by the looks of each that there had been no
news of Peter--no awful, ghastly news, which was what I most had
dreaded in my dull state between sleeping and waking.

"The same result of all the searching had brought something of the
same relief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that