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Mr. Green groaned in response, and drove on. Mrs. Lamb went in, and stood at her sitting-room window and watched the lights over at the Green house. They flitted from one room to another all night. At dawn Aunt Susy ran over with her shawl over her head. She was wan and hollow-eyed.

“They haven’t found a sign of her,” said she. “They’ve looked everywhere. The Pitkin boy’s been down the well. Mr. Pitkin has just come over from the village, and a lot of men are going out to hunt for her as soon as it’s light. If Mehitable only would tell!”

“I can’t make her,” said Mrs. Lamb, despairingly.

“I know what I think you’d ought to do,” said Aunt Susy, in a desperate voice.

“What?”

“Whip her.”

“Oh, Susy, I can’t! I never whipped her in my life.”

“Well, I don’t care. I should.” Aunt Susy had the tragic and resolute expression of an inquisitor. She might have been proposing the rack. “I think it is your duty,” she added.

Mrs. Lamb sank into the rocking-chair and wept; but within an hour’s time Mehitable stood shivering and sobbing in her night-gown, and held out her pretty little hands while her mother switched them with a small stick. Aunt Susy was crying down in the sitting-room. “Did she tell?” she inquired, when her sister, quite pale and trembling, came in with the stick.

“No,” replied Mrs. Lamb. “I never will whip that dear child again, come what will.” And she broke the stick in two and threw it out of the window.

As the day advanced teams began to pass the house. Now and then one heard a signal horn. The search for Hannah Maria was being organized. Mrs. Lamb and the aunts cooked a hot breakfast, and carried it over to Mr. and Mrs. Green. They felt as if they must do something to prove their regret and sympathy. Mehitable was up and dressed, but her poor little auburn locks were not curled, and the pink roundness seemed gone from her face. She sat quietly in her little chair in the sitting-room and held her doll. Her mother had punished her very tenderly, but there were some red marks on her little hands. She had not eaten any breakfast, but her grandmother had kindly made her some thoroughwort tea. The bitterness of life seemed actually tasted to poor little Mehitable Lamb.

It was about nine o’clock, and Mrs. Lamb and the aunts had just carried the hot breakfast over to the Green’s, and were arranging it on the table, when another team drove into the yard. It was a white horse and a covered wagon. On the front seat sat Hannah Maria’s aunt, Jenny Dunn, and a young lady, one of Hannah Maria’s cousins. Mrs. Green ran to the door. “Oh, Jenny, have you heard?” she gasped. Then she screamed, for Hannah Maria was peeking out of the rear of the covered wagon. She was in there with another young lady cousin, and a great basket of yellow apples.

“Hannah Maria Green, where have you been?” cried her mother.

“Why, what do you think! That child walked ‘way over to our house last night,” Aunt Jenny said, volubly; “and Timothy was gone with the horse, and there wasn’t anything to do but to keep her. I knew you wouldn’t be worried about her, for she said the little Lamb girl knew where she’d gone, and–“

Mrs. Green jerked the wagon door open and pulled Hannah Maria out. “Go right into the house!” she said, in a stern voice. “Here she wouldn’t tell where you’d gone. And the whole town hunting! Go in.”

Hannah Maria’s face changed from uneasy and deprecating smiles to the certainty of grief. “Oh, I made her promise not to tell, but I s’posed she would,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know ’twas going to be so far. Oh, mother, I’m sorry!”

“Go right in,” said her mother.

And Hannah Maria went in. Aunt Susy and Mrs. Lamb pushed past her as she entered. They were flying home to make amends to Mehitable, with kind words and kisses, and to take away the taste of the thoroughwort tea with sponge-cake and some of the best strawberry jam.

Later in the forenoon Mehitable, with the row of smooth water-curls round her head, dressed in her clean pink calico, sat on the door-step with her doll. Her face was as smiling as the china one. Hannah Maria came slowly into the yard. She carried a basket of early apples. Her eyes were red. “Here are some apples for you,” she said. “And I’m sorry I made you so much trouble. I’m not going to eat any.”

“Thank you,” said Mehitable. “Did your mother scold?” she inquired, timidly.

“She did first. I’m dreadful sorry. I won’t ever do so again. I–kind of thought you’d tell.”

“I’m not a telltale,” said Mehitable.

“No, you’re not,” said Hannah Maria.