“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.”

“Lady?  What lady?” and Robin looked, as he felt, bewildered by Priscilla’s vague statement.  “Did someone come here to see the house?”

“Not exactly—­I don’t know what it was all about,” replied Priscilla.  “But quite a grand lady called an’ gave me her card.  I saw the name on it—­’Lady Maude Blythe’—­and she asked to see ‘Miss Jocelyn’ on business.  I asked if it was anything I could do, and she said no.  So I called the child in from the garden, and she and the lady had quite a long talk together in the best parlour.  Then when the lady went away, Innocent told me that she had wished to buy something from Briar Farm—­but that it was not to be sold.”

Robin listened attentively.  “Curious!” he murmured—­“very curious!  What was the lady’s name?”

“Lady Maude Blythe,” repeated Priscilla, slowly.

He took out a note-book and pencil, and wrote it down.

“You don’t think she came to engage Innocent for some service?” he asked.  “Or that Innocent herself had perhaps written to an agency asking for a place, and that this lady had come to see her in consequence?”

Such an idea had never occurred to Priscilla’s mind, but now it was suggested to her it seemed more than likely.

“It might be so,” she answered, slowly.  “But I can’t bear to think the child was playin’ a part an’ tellin’ me things that weren’t true just to get away from us.  No!  Mister Robin!  I don’t believe that lady had anything to do with her going.”

“Well, I shall keep the name by me,” he said.  “And I shall find out where the lady lives, who she is and all about her.  For if I don’t hear from Innocent, if she doesn’t write to us, I’ll search the whole world and never rest till I find her!”