"Oh, the poor child!" Priscilla said, sobbingly. "All alone in a
hard world, with her strange little fancies, and no one to take
care of her! Oh, Mr. Robin, whatever are we to do!"

"Nothing!" and Robin's handsome face was pale and set. "We can
only wait to hear from her--she will not keep us long in anxiety--
she has too much heart for that. After all, it is MY fault,
Priscilla! I tried to persuade her to marry me against her will--I
should have let her alone."

Sudden boyish tears sprang to his eyes--he dashed them away in
self-contempt.

"I'm a regular coward, you see," he said. "I could cry like a
baby--not for myself so much, but to think of her running away
from Briar Farm out into the wide world all alone! Little
Innocent! She was safe here--and if she had wished it, _I_ would
have gone away--I would have made HER the owner of the farm, and
left her in peace to enjoy it and to marry any other man she
fancied. But she wouldn't listen to any plan for her own happiness
since she knew she was not my uncle's daughter--that is what has
changed her! I wish she had never known!"

"Ay, so do I!" agreed Priscilla, dolefully. "But she's got the
fancifullest notions! All about that old stone knight in the
garden--an' what wi' the things he's left carved all over the wall
of the room where she read them queer old books, she's fair 'mazed
with ideas that don't belong to the ways o' the world at all. I
can't think what'll become o' the child. Won't there be any means
of findin' out where she's gone?"