'And I'd rather _any_thing,' said the nurse. 'Oh, my goodness me. I wish I'd never been born.' And then and there, before the astonished eyes of Philip, she began to behave as any nice person might--she began to cry. 'It wouldn't have happened,' said the cook, 'if the master hadn't been away. He's a Justice of the Peace, he is, and a terror to gipsies. It wouldn't never have happened if----' Philip could not bear it any longer. '_What_ wouldn't have happened if?' he asked, startling everybody to a quick jump of surprise. The nurse stopped crying and turned to look at him. 'Oh, _you_!' she said slowly. 'I forgot _you_. You want your breakfast, I suppose, no matter what's happened?' 'No, I don't,' said Philip, with extreme truth. 'I want to know what _has_ happened?' 'Miss Lucy's lost,' said the cook heavily, 'that's what's happened. So now you know. You run along and play, like a good little boy, and don't make extry trouble for us in the trouble we're in.' 'Lost?' repeated Philip. 'Yes, lost. I expect you're glad,' said the nurse, 'the way you treated her. You hold your tongue and don't let me so much as hear you breathe the next twenty-four hours. I'll go and write that telegram.' Philip thought it best not to let any one hear him breathe. By this means he heard the telegram when nurse read it aloud to the cook. 'Peter Graham, Esq., Hotel Wagram, Brussels. Miss Lucy lost. Please come home immediately. PHILKINS. That's all right, isn't it?' 'I don't see why you sign it Philkins. You're only the nurse--I'm the head of the house when the family's away, and my name's Bobson,' the cook said. There was a sound of torn paper. 'There--the paper's tore. I'd just as soon your name went to it,' said the nurse. 'I don't want to be the one to tell such news.' 'Oh, my good gracious, what a thing to happen,' sighed the cook. 'Poor little darling!' Then somebody wrote the telegram again, and the nurse took it out to the stable-yard, where Peppermint was already saddled. 'I thought,' said Philip, bold in the nurse's absence, 'I thought Lucy was with her aunt.' 'She came back yesterday,' said the cook. 'Yes, after you'd gone to bed. And this morning that nurse went into the night nursery and she wasn't there. Her bed all empty and cold, and her clothes gone. Though how the gipsies could have got in without waking that nurse is a mystery to me and ever will be. She must sleep like a pig.' 'Or the seven sleepers,' said the coachman. 'But what would gipsies want her _for_?' Philip asked. 'What do they ever want anybody for?' retorted the cook. 'Look at the heirs that's been stolen. I don't suppose there's a titled family in England but what's had its heir stolen, one time and another.' 'I suppose you've looked all over the house,' said Philip.