"Well," said Mrs. Meadows, "the shortest way to tell you that is the best way. It happened that on the very day the little girl ran away to visit her nurse, the nurse had concluded to visit the little girl. So she put on her best things and went to the little girl's home. When the woman came to the garden she saw the gate open, and presently her husband, the gardener, came out trundling a load of weeds and trash in his wheelbarrow. She asked about the little girl. "'She was playing under the trees yonder awhile ago,' said the man. 'I haven't seen her since.' "The woman went into the garden and searched among the trees and arbors, but no little girl could she find. "'Having come so far,' she said to herself, 'I'll not go back without seeing the precious little creature.' So she went towards the house, searching for the child. She inquired of every servant she met where the little girl was, and finally went into the house searching for her. At last she came to the room where sat her former mistress. But the child was not there. "In a very short while there was a tremendous uproar in the place. The maid servants and the men servants went running about through the house, through the yard, and through the garden, calling the little girl. They hunted in every hole and corner, and in every nook and cranny, but the child was not to be found. "The kind-hearted nurse wept almost as bitterly as the mother. 'Oh, if I had been here,' she cried, 'this would never have happened.' "The little girl's father came in just in time to hear this, and he immediately suspected that the nurse had stolen his daughter and would pretend to find her again in the hope of securing a reward. He said nothing of his suspicions, but he determined to have the nurse closely watched. "He was so firmly convinced that his suspicion was correct that he treated his daughter's disappearance somewhat lightly, and this helped to console the mother. When it became certain that the little girl was not to be found in the house or on the place, her father called one of his trusty clerks (for he was a rich and powerful merchant), and told him to disguise himself as a peddler, go to the nurse's house, and there discover, if possible, where the nurse had bestowed the child. "The clerk did as he was directed, but when he arrived at the nurse's house, disguised as a peddler, he was surprised to find as much grief under that humble roof as there was at his master's house. He knocked at the door and inquired the cause of the trouble, hoping to discover that the display of grief was a mere sham. But he soon saw it was genuine. Both the woman and her handsome son were weeping bitterly over the disappearance of the little girl. "'May I get a bite to eat?' asked the peddler.