"Dear, dear!" replied Mrs. Dolman. "Do you know, Miss Ramsay, I am almost sorry I undertook the charge of the little Delaneys. They certainly have turned out, as their poor father expressed it, a handful. If Iris is really ill, I had better see her. Send her to me. You don't suppose she is--fretting?" "Yes; of course she is fretting dreadfully," replied Miss Ramsay. "And no wonder, poor little girl! For my part, I consider it perfectly awful to contemplate the fate of those poor lost children." "Oh, they will be found--they are likely to return here any day," replied Mrs. Dolman. "It is just like you, Miss Ramsay, to go to the fair with things, and to imagine the very worst. Why, for instance, should not some very kind people have found the children? Why must they, as a matter of course, have fallen into the hands of cruel and unprincipled folk? Some of the very sharpest detectives in Scotland Yard are on their track. For my part, I have not the slightest doubt that they will soon be brought back." Miss Ramsay uttered a sigh. "I will send Iris down to speak to you," she said. This conversation occurred between three and four weeks after little Orion and Diana had disappeared. Mrs. Dolman was in her study. It was a very ugly room, sparsely furnished. There was a large, old-fashioned desk in the center of the room, and she was seated in an armchair in front of it, busily engaged making up her different tradesmen's books, when the door was softly opened and Iris came in. Mrs. Dolman had not had any special conversation with Iris since the mysterious disappearance of the two younger children, and now, as she raised her eyes and looked at her attentively, she was startled at the great change in her appearance. The child was reduced almost to a shadow. She was dressed in her heavy black, without a touch of relieving white. Her lovely hair hung over her shoulders, and was pushed back from her low brow, bringing into greater contrast the small, pinched, white face, and the great brown eyes, which looked now too big for the little countenance to which they belonged. "Come here, Iris," said Mrs. Dolman. She had always liked Iris the best of the children. "Come and tell me what is the matter." Iris came slowly forward. "Miss Ramsay says that you do not eat and do not sleep. If that is the case, I must send for the doctor to see you," continued Aunt Jane. "Yes, Aunt Jane," answered Iris. She hung her head listlessly. Mrs. Dolman put her arm round the slender waist and drew the child close to her side. Iris submitted to this embrace without in any way returning it. "And when you see the doctor he will, of course, order you a tonic, and perhaps tell us to take you to the seaside. If that is the case, we must do so, Iris--we must do our duty by you, whatever happens. It would never do for you to be ill, you understand." "Yes, Aunt Jane," answered Iris; "that's what I think myself--it would never do."