"Leave her," she whispered to Alice, "leave her alone a moment. Send Robert up to her. Perhaps she'll talk to Robert." For childhood will confess to childhood when words fail them before grown-ups.
They waited what seemed an interminable time, asking each other:
"What could be the matter with her?"
"What do you suppose has happened?"
At last Robert returned. His face was serious.
"She's done an awful thing," he announced; "she's killed Mrs. Painter's tamest canary. She didn't mean to, of course. She just came in with her balloon, and the canary's always loose, and it was scared and dashed its head against the mirror! What ails Sara is that she feels like a murderess, I guess!"
Sara, the murderess, had been weeping hours unconsoled and inconsolable!
"She thinks it all happened because Father threw away her lucky stone," Robert continued. "And she blames my Attic Fairy."
Alice started up the stairs again, but Laurie stopped her.
"Sara's gone out, though it's dusk already," she said; "nor could I nor any one have stopped her. With the tears streaming down her face she's gone out, and looking determined; so I hadn't a word to say to her."
"She's gone for her lucky stone," said Robert.
"Maybe she's gone to Mrs. Painter's," Grandma suggested.
Robert was sent on the search.
"She isn't in the yard," he reported, and a few moments later, "She's not at Mrs. Painter's. I looked through the window, and Mrs. Painter was sitting just rocking and sewing all by herself."
Visions of what might have happened to Sara in this
