"He will come fast enough when it is time for supper," replied the
father quietly.
The cousin entered the room. She had been quite sure that the lad was
there, and she expected him to come out if she only stood at the door
and asked for him.
Now she went on to tell them that he had not made his appearance at
breakfast, nor at dinner-time, and that he had not been in bed the
previous night, for she had found it as she had left it; and she
believed that he must have gone away very early in the morning before
daybreak, wandering about as he was in the habit of doing, for the bolt
was pushed aside on the house-door when she went to open it. She thought
at first that she must have forgotten to bolt it the night before in her
anger, for nobody knew how angry she had been.
"Something has happened to him," said the father, quite unmoved. "He has
probably fallen into some cleft up there on the mountain: it often
happens to little boys who go climbing about everywhere.
"You ought to have spoken of it earlier in the day," he went on slowly.
"We shall have to go to look for him, and in the night you can't see
any thing."
At these words the cousin broke out into a terrible uproar. She expected
there would be all sorts of fault found with her; that was always the
way when you had suffered for years, and never said any thing about it.
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