saw Phyllis in the distance; she called to
her. Phyllis ran up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh, something so dreadful!" she gasped; "a wicked, wicked woman has
stolen little Nan Thornton. She ran off with her just where the
undergrowth is so thick at the end of the shady walk. It happened to her
half an hour ago, and they are all looking, but they cannot find the
woman or little Nan anywhere. Oh, it is so dreadful! Is that you, Mary?"

Phyllis ran off to join her sister, and Annie put her head in again, and
looked round her pretty room.

"The gypsy," she murmured, "the tall, dark gypsy has taken little Nan!"

Her face was very white, her eyes shone, her lips expressed a firm and
almost obstinate determination. With all her usual impulsiveness, she
decided on a course of action--she snatched up a piece of paper and
scribbled a hasty line:

"DEAR MOTHER-FRIEND:--However badly you think of Annie, Annie loves
you with all her heart. Forgive me, I must go myself to look for
little Nan. That tall, dark woman is a gypsy--I have seen her
before; her name is Mother Rachel. Tell Hetty I won't return until
I bring her little sister back.--Your repentant and sorrowful

ANNIE."

Annie twisted up the note, directed it to Mrs. Willis, and left it on her
dressing-table.

Then, with a wonderful amount of forethought for her, she emptied the
contents of a little purse into a tiny gingham bag, which she fastened
inside the front of her dress. She put on her shady hat, and threw a
shawl across her arm, and then, slipping softly downstairs, she went out
through the deserted kitchens, down the back avenue, and past the laurel
bush, until she came to the stile which led into the wood--she was going
straight to the gypsies' encampment.

Annie, with some of the gypsy's characteristics in her own blood, had
always taken an extraordinary interest in these queer wandering people.
Gypsies had a fascination for her, she loved stories about them; if a
gypsy encampment was near, she always begged the teachers to walk in that
direction. Annie had a very vivid imagination, and in the days when she
reigned as favorite in the school she used to make up stories for the
express benefit of her companions. These stories, as a rule, always
turned upon the gypsies. Many and many a time had the girls of Lavender
House almost gasped with horror as Annie described the queer