l you have some real facts to go on."

"Yes, do," urged Mollie.

"But he isn't your brother," said Grace in retort. "How would you like
it, Mollie Billette, if Paul should be missing some day?"

"Oh, I'd feel dreadful, of course. But Paul and Dodo get into so many
scrapes," she added, with a curious shrug of her shoulders, in which she
betrayed her French ancestry--"so very many scrapes, my dears, that we
are past being shocked."

But, for all Mollie spoke so lightly, she knew--and so did her
chums--that should anything happen to the twins Mollie would be the
first to show emotion.

"Have you heard no word from Will himself?" asked Betty, after a pause.

"Not a word, and that makes it seem all the worse. If we only had some
word--something to go by, we might not feel so bad. But it came like a
bolt out of a blue sky--what Uncle Isaac telephoned about an hour ago.
He is down town attending to business, and he said he'd come up as soon
as he could. He was surprised himself, to know that Will was not home."

"Then he knew that he had left Atlanta?" asked Mollie.

"Yes, but he supposed Will had started back home."

"I'm afraid I don't exactly understand it all," said Amy in a low voice.
"You know I've been away, and----"

"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Grace. "I forgot that you had been off with
that newly-found brother of yours. Well, you see, Amy, Will disgraced
himself a while ago----"

"I don't call it much of a disgrace," said Betty in defense of the
absent one.

"Well, papa did," said Grace. "I thought perhaps he was a little too
severe on Will, but mamma said it was best to be severe at the start."

"What did he do?" asked Amy.

"I didn't hear all the particulars," went on Grace. "But you know that
new Latin teacher the High School boys have--Professor Cark, his name
is."

Amy nodded.

"Well, the boys didn't like him from the very start," proceeded Grace,
"and I guess he didn't like the boys any too well. They played some
tricks on him, and he retaliated by doubling up on their lessons. Then
one night he was kidnapped--taken from his boarding place and hazed. It
was nothing very bad, but the faculty held a meeting, and voted to expel
all the boys concerned in it. Will was one, and papa was so angry that
he said he would punish Will in a way he wouldn't forget. He said he'd
take him out of school, before he'd have him expelled, and make him lose
a term.

"So poor Will was given his choice of starting