ever, that the publicity given to her disappearance by the papers
would bring immediate news of her.

The effect of the whole article was to raise grave doubts as to the
candor of Mr. Van Burnam's assertions, and I am told that in some of the
less scrupulous papers these doubts were not only expressed, but actual
surmises ventured upon as to the identity between the person whom I had
seen enter the house with the young girl. As for my own name, it was
blazoned forth in anything but a gratifying manner. I was spoken of in
one paper--a kind friend told me this--as the prying Miss Amelia. As if
my prying had not given the police their only clue to the identification
of the criminal.

The New York _World_ was the only paper that treated me with any
consideration. That young man with the small head and beady eyes was not
awed by me for nothing. He mentioned me as the clever Miss Butterworth
whose testimony is likely to be of so much value in this very
interesting case.

It was the _World_ I handed the Misses Van Burnam when they came
down-stairs to breakfast. It did justice to me and not too much
injustice to him. They read it together, their two heads plunged deeply
into the paper so that I could not watch their faces. But I could see
the sheet shake, and I noticed that their social veneer was not as yet
laid on so thickly that they could hide their real terror and heart-ache
when they finally confronted me again.

"Did you read--have you seen this horrible account?" quavered Caroline,
as she met my eye.

"Yes, and I now understand why you felt such anxiety yesterday. Did you
know your sister-in-law, and do you think she could have been beguiled
into your father's house in that way?"

It was Isabella who answered.

"We never have seen her and know little of her, but there is no telling
what such an uncultivated person as she might do. But that our good
brother Howard ever went in there with her is a lie, isn't it,
Caroline?--a base and malicious lie?"

"Of course it is, of course, of course. You don't think the man you saw
was Howard, do you, dear Miss Butterworth?"

_Dear?_ O dear!

"I am not acquainted with your brother," I returned. "I have never seen
him but a few times in my life. You know he has not been a very frequent
visitor at your father's house lately."

They looked at me wistfully, _so_ wistfully.

"Say it was not Howard," whispered Caroline, stealing up a little nearer
to my side.

"And we wi