"Good-by, Annie dear; mind and take good care of Dorrie."
"Yes, mamma."
Ah! Annie, how easy it is to make a promise! A hearty kiss sealed it;
then Mrs. Roby drove away in her carriage, and so our story begins.
Mamma gone out to spend the day, Annie left at home to take care of
Dorrie, while nurse was cleaning the nurseries. Annie was six, Ralph,
her brother, seven, Dorrie four, and the "funniest little puppet in all
England," so Ralph said.
"Annie, I _do fink_ Mab could walk almost by herself with these boots
on," said Dorrie, she and Annie back in the dining-room, Dorrie busy
with a family of three dolls, Annie deep in a new story-book.
The wee mamma had just contrived to put a pair of new boots, of Annie's
manufacturing, on the by no means elegant feet of shock-headed Mab. Next
came the suggestion from silver-tongued Dorrie, as Annie was silent--
"I _fink_ Mab and Alice ought to go for a walk. Baby is just gone to
sleep;" and the mite was laid carefully among the sofa cushions.
"Very well." Down went the book; with that promise just spoken, Annie
could not well do other than go this walk with her little sister, yet in
a listless, half-hearted way.
"You take the one hand, I the other;" so prattled Dorrie. "Oh! see her
feet!" and certainly Miss Mab did trip it out right nimbly down to the
gate. How Dorrie laughed, watching her.
Just outside the gate they met Ralph.
"What are you laughing at, old lady?" he asked.
"Because Mab can almost walk by herself," she told him.
"Then she'll be running away one of these days," said the boy.
"Oh! she wouldn't--she wouldn't run away from me, because I love her
so;" and Dorrie stooped and gave her a sounding kiss.
"You just wait and see," was Ralph's answer; then he went on, and the
sisters pursued their walk.
Back again, then dinner for the children, a long sleep for the dollies,
and next, the golden afternoon to be lived through and enjoyed.
"Annie!" cried Dorrie, coming down from the nursery, and peering in at
the dining-room, where Annie was now reading with a will, deep in the
wildest tragedy of the story, where a dog, a gypsy, and a certain Sophia
were playing their parts in real story-book fashion. "Annie!" so
silvery-tongued Dorrie spoke her name again.
"Well, what?" was the unladylike answer from Annie.
"I _fink_ the dollies want to go out in their mail-cart."
"Well, take them."
"But I want you to come."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't; run away."
"Must I go alone?" asked Dorrie sadly.
"Yes, of course you must." And she went.
Shock-headed Mab, Alice, and Daisy in the jaunting mail-cart, Dorrie
drawing it, playing pony and careful mamma all in one; out at the gate,
along the road to the copse; a river came running and babbling along by
the road, as one neared the copse. Inside the copse the doves were
cooing, squirrels leaping, the cuckoo crying, as the mite went along.
What would send her back? Not her baby conscience, for Annie had told
her to go all by herself--big, big Annie, ever so big.
At home, the afternoon wore away, tea-time came; nurse ran down from the
nursery to the dining-room to fetch her two little charges. Only Annie
was there, who started up from her book, like a girl awaking from sleep.
"Why, Miss Annie, I thought Dorrie was here!" cried nurse, in surprise.
"No, she--she"--Annie's conscience gave her such a prick.
"She what?" inquired nurse sharply.
"She took the dolls out in the mail-cart, and"--how Annie bowed her head
as conscience whispered of that promise to her mamma broken; and her
poor troubled heart also whispered, "What if something sad was going to
happen?"
Well, they sought the child here, there, and everywhere, little dreaming
what had happened, what was happening still. At last Ralph started off,
by the way of the copse, to look for her. Annie hurried in another
direction, and nurse in yet another. Rover went with Ralph--good Rover,
who could fetch, carry, and find so much. Oh, dear! what a seeking and
searching love makes, when even one wee maiden is lost! Ay, lost--not a
trace of her could Ralph and Rover find, till they came to the babbling
river, and there, on the bank, lay a posy of lilies-of-the-valley, and a
knot of ribbon from Dorrie's shoulder; the river babbled out the rest of
the story. Poor Ralph! how he cried now!
"Dorrie! Dorrie!" he cried, peering down into the shining river, as if
fearful of seeing a sun-bonnet and a gleaming of golden hair in its
depths. But no; he saw nothing, only the minnows, the water-spiders, and
the pebbles.
"Lost! Rover, find!" said he to the dog, showing him Dorrie's
shoulder-knot and the flowers.
Rover seemed to understand, for he sniffed at the ground, and then
bounded into the river, diving down, and no doubt frightening the fishes
as much as he did Ralph. Presently he came out, bringing--ah! what? Mab,
dripping, water-bedabbled--a pitiful object indeed. The boy took her in
his hand, too alarmed to laugh, though fright and fun almost choked him;
then the dog bounded and led the way into the copse, where the doves
still cooed, the squirrels leaped, and the cuckoo cried, as if no small
maiden was lost, perhaps never to be found again alive. The thought made
Ralph shiver.
The river flowed through one corner of the copse; he could see it
shining where the sunbeams fell through the tree branches. But Rover did
not go that way: he dived away among the trees and undergrowth.
"Dorrie! Dorrie!" cried the little brother.
"Wow-wow-wow!" barked Rover, but at first no response.
Presently, "Wow-wow-wow!" barked Rover again; it was a joyful bark, and
Ralph ran to him. There lay poor tired Dorrie fast asleep, the two
remaining dolls in the mail-cart smiling and staring at her. But Rover
woke her with a pat, Ralph hugged her with such a fond hug; then they
started homeward, Ralph taking the mail-cart, with poor wet Mab mounted
in disgrace behind, Dorrie clinging to his other hand. They reached home
in time to go in with mamma, returned from her visit.
"I left my dollies to go into the copse to pick some flowers, and when I
came back Mab had run away; then I went into the copse to find her, and
couldn't; then I cried and went to sleep, and Rover found me." This was
Dorrie's story of herself.
"I will never, never, never break a promise again, mamma!" said penitent
Annie.
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