vacant, her bed unslept in, and the letter for Robin on the table--and that letter disclosed little or nothing of her intentions. "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?" "I'm afraid not!" answered Robin, sadly. "We muse trust to her remembrance of us, Priscilla, and her thoughts of the old home where she was loved and cared for." His voice shook. "It will be a dreary place without her! We shall miss her every minute, every hour of the day! I cannot fancy what the garden will look like without her little white figure flitting over the grass, and her sweet fair face smiling among the roses! Hang it all, Priscilla, if it were not for the last wishes of my Uncle Hugo I'd throw the whole thing up and go abroad!" "Don't do that, Mister Robin!"--and Priscilla laid her rough work-worn hand on his arm--"Don't do it! It's turning your back on duty to give up the work entrusted to you by a dead man. You know it is! An' the child may come back any day! I shouldn't wonder if she got frightened at being alone and ran home again to-morrow! Think of it, Mister Robin! Suppose she came an' you weren't here? Why, you'd never forgive yourself! I can't think she's gone far or that she'll stay away long. Her heart's in Briar Farm all the while--I'd swear to that! Why, only yesterday when a fine lady came to see if she couldn't buy something out o' the house, you should just a' seen her toss her pretty little head when she told me how she'd said it wasn't to be sold."