hould see him again. I wrote
several letters to him, sending them to Humboldt, but they always came
back to me.

"After a while I gave up all hope and stopped writing. I couldn't bear
to think of having more letters come back unclaimed. I tried to forget
that I had even dreamed of seeing my father again, and began to put my
whole mind on going to college. Now I am so thankful that I persevered
and won the scholarship. There were times when I was very unhappy over
leaving the only home I had ever known, outside the orphanage. Still I
could not rid myself of the conviction that I had taken a step in the
right direction. Later, when I met you girls, I was sure of it. Even
though I didn't find my father, I found true and loyal friends who have
crowded more pleasure and happiness into one short year than I ever had
in all my life before."

"I'll lend you half of my father, Ruth," offered Arline generously. "He
is almost as fond of you as he is of me. You remember he said so."

"Weren't you green with jealousy when he admitted it?" teased Anne.

"Not a bit of it," protested Arline stoutly. "I only wish Ruth were my
sister."

"I'd like to be the one to find Ruth's father," mused Grace.

Anne smiled. "Even college can't uproot Grace's sleuthing tendencies.
She has an absolute genius for ferreting out mysteries."

"No, I haven't," contradicted Grace. "If I had--" she stopped. She had
been on the point of remarking that she would have known who had stolen
and used her theme.

"If you had what?" asked Arline curiously.

"If I had the genius of which Arline prattles, I'd be at the head of the
New York Detective Bureau," finished Grace. And Anne alone knew that
Grace had purposely substituted this flippant answer to conceal her real
thought.

CHAPTER XIV

GRACE MAKES A RESOLUTION

"What do you think has happened?" demanded J. Elfreda Briggs, bursting
into the room where Anne and Grace were busily making up for lost time.
They had lingered at Vinton's until after eight o'clock. Then the
thought of to-morrow with its eternal round of classes had driven them
home, reluctantly enough, to where their books awaited them. It was
almost nine o'clock before they had actually settled themselves, and
Elfreda's sudden, tempestuous entrance caused Anne to lay down her
Horace with an air of patient resignation. "We might as well begin
saying 'unprepared' now, and grow accustomed to the sound of our own
voices," she announc