When old Nancy had trotted away down the lane, Hilda went back and sat down in the porch, very tired and sad at heart.  It seemed so hard, so hard that she could do nothing to save her friends from the threatening ruin.  She thought of her father, with a momentary flash of hope that made her spring from her seat with a half articulate cry of joy; but the hope faded as she remembered that he had probably just started for the Yosemite Valley, and that there was no knowing when or where a despatch would reach him.  She sighed, and sank back on the bench with a hopeless feeling.  Presently she bethought her of her little dog, whom she had not seen all day.  Jock had grown very dear to her heart, and was usually her inseparable companion, except when she was busy with household tasks, to which he had an extreme aversion.  A mistress, in Jock’s opinion, was a person who fed one, and took one to walk, and patted one, and who was in return to be loved desperately, and obeyed in reason.  But sweeping, and knocking brooms against one’s legs, and paying no attention to one’s invitations to play or go for a walk, were manifest derelictions from a mistress’s duty; accordingly, when Hilda was occupied in the house, Jock always sat in the back porch, with his back turned to the kitchen door, and his tail cocked very high, while one ear listened eagerly for the sound of Hilda’s footsteps, and the other was thrown negligently forward, to convey the impression that he did not really care, but only waited to oblige her.  And the moment the door opened, and she appeared with her hat on, oh, the rapture! the shrieks and squeaks and leaps of joy, the wrigglings of body and frantic waggings of tail that ensued!

So this morning, what with all the trouble, and with her knowledge of his views, Hildegarde had not thought to wonder where Jock was.  But now it struck her that she had exchanged no greeting with him since last night; that she had heard no little impatient barks, no flapping of tail against the door by way of reminder.  Where could the little fellow be?  She walked round the house, calling and whistling softly.  She visited the barn and the cow-shed and all the haunts where her favorite was wont to linger; but no Jock was to be seen.  “Perhaps he has gone over to see Will,” she thought, with a feeling of relief.  Indeed, this was very possible, as the two dogs were very brotherly, and frequently exchanged visits, sometimes acting as letter-carriers for their two mistresses, Pink and Hilda.  If Jock was at Pink’s house, he would be well cared for, and Bubble would—­but here Hildegarde started, as a new perplexity arose.  Where was Bubble?  They had actually forgotten the boy in the confusion and trouble of the day.  He had not certainly come to the house, as he invariably did; and the farmer had not spoken of him when he came in at noon.  Perhaps Pink was ill, Hilda thought, with fresh alarm.  If it should be so, Bubble could not leave her, for Mrs. Chirk was nursing a sick woman two or three miles away, and there were no other neighbors nearer than the farm.  “Oh, my Pink!” cried Hilda; “and I cannot go to you at once, for Nurse Lucy must not be left alone in her trouble.  I must wait, wait patiently till Farmer Hartley comes back.”