Ally was lost—the little blue-eyed dear! That is to say, she was nowhere to be found. And of course there was commotion in the Valley. Michael, the gardener, was going one way; and John, the house-man, another; and Pincher, one of the loggers, was making for the hills with Uncle Billy in one direction, and Old Uncle and Will and Charlie had gone up in another; and Aunt Rose and Aunt Susan were hunting through the house; and Janet and Essie were running this way and that—and it was noon, and still they hadn’t found her.
Will was sure Ally would be found in the strawberry-patch on the farther edge of the intervale across the river, and as the boat was on the other side he had offered to swim over and fetch it.
Charlie had been equally sure that she was looking for bear-cubs again in the hollow half-way up Blue Top.
Aunt Susan was convinced that she had fallen asleep somewhere under a bush, when she could not be found in the house.
Aunt Rose thought she might have been taken to drive by people passing through the Valley—sometimes some of them were—and they would bring her back.
“Of course,” said Old Uncle, “they’ll bring her back! Ally’ll turn up all right—she makes more noise, when she sets about it, than all the rest of you put together!” Nevertheless, Old Uncle—who believed in whipping, at least he said he did—was making for the hollows of Blue Top as he said it. For Ally was really the darling of the household, always bright and sweet-tempered, and daring and ready for anything.
Essie, who was Ally’s twin, felt indignant with Old Uncle for talking so when no one knew what had become of Ally; she gave it as her opinion that the fairies had taken her into their own invisible country—the fairies who haunted the Valley, as every one knew, or else why should they be seen sailing away on the early breeze in chariots like cobwebs, leaving their coverlets, long spreads of jewels, shining on the sides of all the slopes of Blue Top and Green Ridge. But Essie was always imagining something that wasn’t so, Will said.
Janet said nothing. In her own mind, although she didn’t like to speak of it, she believed Ally had gone up into the clouds round Blue Top to find Aunt Susan’s baby who, they understood, had been taken away by the Children of the Hill. Janet knew that Ally had carried a sore spot in her tender heart ever since that day last fall when Aunt Susan was up in the garret, and not knowing that the twins were there, had kissed the tiny shirt. Janet was a little older than the twins, and she was not quite sure that they had understood correctly what Aunt Rose had said one day after Aunt Susan had come home from a long walk, trying to hide that she had been crying—Aunt Rose had whispered that Aunt Susan had been up to the Children of the Hill. Yes, plainly, to Janet’s mind, Ally had taken it into her own hands to discover if they were right or wrong. For it was brave little Ally who, if there was anything to adventure about, always adventured. It was Ally to whom things were always happening. If there was a scrape round, Ally was always the one sure to get into it, although she usually contrived to come out on top—except on those two dreadful times of which you shall hear—for she had a courageous little spirit and a loving little heart. And it was this courageous spirit, and this loving heart full of childish sympathy for Aunt Susan, that had taken Ally away now all by herself. She loved everything so much that she had no thought of being harmed by anything.
So Janet reasoned.
And when, by and by, you learn where she had really gone, and what it was she brought home, perhaps you will think that the result of this particular adventure of Ally’s was one of the pleasantest things that ever befell the Children of the Valley.