provoked, but I begin to think now I was a
bit too harsh with him."

"Nonsense!" snorted Uncle Isaac. "Harshness is good for boys. I wasn't
any harsher on him than on any of the boys that work in my mill. I made
him toe the mark--that's all."

"But Will has a sensitive nature," said his father slowly. "Did he give
any intimation that he was going to leave?"

"Not a bit. He did his work well--that is, as well as any boys do. None
of 'em are much good."

Grace caught her breath. She started to say something, but her father,
by a slight motion of his head, stopped her.

"Will stayed at my home, you know," went on Uncle Isaac. "I did the best
by him I knew. I didn't let him out nights, I made him read good and
helpful books like 'Pilgrims Progress,' and others of the kind, and I
kept him from the moving pictures.

"Well the first thing I knew he wasn't in his room when I went to call
him one morning, and there was this note."

He held it out. Mr. Ford read it eagerly. All it said was:

"I can't stand it any longer. I'm going to quit."

"And he had packed up his things and left," went on Uncle Isaac. "I was
dumbfounded, I was. I didn't think it was much use to hunt for him as I
thought he'd come right home. He had some money--you know you gave him
some."

Mr. Ford nodded.

"I didn't write, as I calculated on coming up North," went on Uncle
Isaac. "Then when I telephoned, and found Will hadn't come home, I
didn't know what to think."

"Nor I either," said Mr. Ford, "when you stopped in at my office and
told me. When did he leave your house?"

"It will be a week to-morrow."

"And never a word from him in all that time," mused the father. "I don't
like it."

Grace felt her eyes filling with tears. Betty patted her hand.

"Well, something will have to be done," said Mr. Ford with a sigh.
"Isaac, let's talk this over, and see what we can do. I may have to go
to Atlanta to straighten this out. I don't believe Will would
deliberately set out to cause us worry."

"I'm sure he wouldn't!" declared Grace, eagerly.

Her father and uncle left to go to Mr. Ford's private office in the
house, for he was a lawyer, and kept a large library at home. The girls
sat in the main library, looking at one another with sad eyes.

"Oh, isn't it too bad--just after we had such fun in our winter camp!"
exclaimed Grace. "Poor Will! It does seem as if there was nothing happy
in this world any more."

"Oh, don't feel that way!"