While Clementina was waiting in a state of absolute despair matters were not so hopeless for her as she supposed. The children when they reached Avonsyde gave an instant alarm, and steps were at once taken to search for the missing girl. But it is one thing to be lost in the forest and another thing to be found. Ruby had taken Clementina in the opposite direction from Avonsyde, and when she was submerged in the bog she was many miles away. Robert, shaking his head and muttering that a willful girl must come to grief, and that it would be well if they ever saw Miss Marmaduke alive again, went off to saddle a fresh horse to go in search of her. Other people also started on the same errand; and Phil, whose pale little face was all aglow with excitement, rushed into the stables, and securing a horse, mounted it and rode away after the others. The boy was a splendid rider, having been accustomed to mounting all kinds of steeds from his babyhood; but he was tired now, and neither Miss Griselda nor his mother would have allowed him to go had they known anything about it. But the elder members of the family were all away, and the children and servants were only acting on their own responsibility.
Phil soon caught up Robert, and the two trotted together side by side.
"I'm quite certain I saw Ruby turning to the left after he went down that steep bank," said Phil.
"Then if he did he made for the bog and the waterfall as likely as not," said Robert.
"Oh, Robert, you don't suppose Clementina has been drowned in one of the bogs?" exclaimed Phil in an accent of terror. "You don't, you can't suppose that?"
The man favored the boy with a queer glance.
"If Miss Marmaduke was like you, Master Lovel, or like Miss Rachel or Miss Kitty, why, I'd say there weren't a hope of her; but being what she is--well, maybe she'll be given a little more time to mend her manners in."
Phil's face assumed a puzzled expression. He said nothing further, and the two rode hard and fast.
In this manner they did at last find poor Clementina, who, much subdued and softened, received them with almost rapture.
"There's nothing like affliction for bringing characters of that sort low," muttered Robert as he helped the young lady on his own horse. "And now, where's that little beauty Ruby, I wonder? Dashed hisself to pieces as likely as not agin' some of them rocks up there. Oh, yes, and there'll be no 'count made at all of one of the prettiest little horses I ever broke in."