"For the time we were helpless; we did not know, we could not think what to do next. A policeman came up from the nearest station as we stood considering what we should do. But he had no news; he shook his head at my eager inquiry. ’No, madam,’ he said, ’I’m sorry we have no news of the little lady; but we telegraphed to all the stations near, but no lost child has been brought in. She must have fallen in with some private person.’ "As you may imagine," Mrs. Ferrers went on, "I felt dreadfully blank--indeed, your father and I simply stood and looked at one another. What should we, what could we do next? To go out and search about the streets at nearly midnight would be like looking for a needle in a truss of hay--we could not send a crier out with a bell--we were at our wits’ end. Indeed, it seemed as if we could do nothing but wait till morning, when we might advertise. "Then just as the policeman was turning away, another policeman came and knocked at the door. A little girl had been taken into the police station at Hammersmith, a pretty fair-haired child about six years old, who did not know where she lived, and could not make the men there understand who she was. "’That’s not Miss Mignon,’ cried Humphie indignantly; ’Miss Mignon knows perfectly well who she is and who she belongs to. That’s never Miss Mignon.’ "’Ah, well, Humphie,’ said your father, ’Miss Mignon has never been lost at dead of night before; it’s enough to frighten any child, and though she’s as quick as a needle, she’s only a baby after all.’ "The carriage was still at the door, and we went down as quickly as the horses could go to Hammersmith, feeling sure that we should find Mignon there, frightened and tired, but safe. And when we got there the child wasn’t Mignon at all, but a little, commonly-dressed thing who didn’t seem even to know what her name was. However, its mother came whilst we were there, and scolded her properly for what she called ’running away.’ "I couldn’t help it," Mrs. Ferrers went on. "I was in such trouble, wondering what had got Mignon, and I just spoke to her straight. ’Oh,’ I said, ’you ought only to be thankful your little girl is safe and sound, and not be scolding the poor little frightened thing like that. How can your speak to her so?’ "’Well,’ she said, ’if you had seven of them always up to some mischief or other, and you’d been running about for hours till you were fit to drop, and you hadn’t a carriage to take her home in, I daresay you’d feel a bit cross, too.’ "And I felt," Mrs. Ferrers went on reflectively, "that there was a great deal in what she said. They didn’t live more than a mile off, and it was our way back, so we drove them home, and the little girl went to sleep on her mother’s knee; and I told her what trouble we were in about Mignon. She was quite grateful for the lift, and I promised to let her know if we found Mignon all right.