is part of the life problem, is it? Poor little girl, she has got
to learn something which the average girl has to unlearn; where they
entirely trust their fellow-beings, she entirely distrusts them. I wonder
if I shall ever be able to show her the middle path?" Telling the porter
to wait a moment, Miss Preston slipped into the library, and, catching up
a pencil and slip of paper, wrote down the name and address which was
written upon the envelope, then, stepping back to the hall, handed the
porter the letter to post.

Toinette joined the girls, and in the lively chatter which ensued forgot
all about the letter until several hours later, and then searched for it
in every possible and impossible place, but, of course, without finding
it, and was in a very _un_comfortable frame of mind for several days, and
then something happened which did not serve to reassure her, for a reply
came to her from her correspondent.

How in the world her letter had ever reached him was the question which
puzzled her not a little, and she fretted over the thing till she was in a
fever. Then she determined to write again to ask how and when the letter
had reached him, although she was beginning to wish that boy, letter and
all, were at the bottom of the Red Sea, so much had they tormented her. So
a second letter was written, and then came the puzzle of getting it into
the mail bag unnoticed. At Miss Carter's school all letters had been
examined before they were allowed to be mailed, and as Toinette's
correspondence was supposed to be limited to the letters she wrote to her
father, she had never inquired whether Miss Preston first examined them or
not, but, taking it for granted that she did so, handed them to her
unsealed. On the other hand, Miss Preston, thinking that it was simply
carelessness that they were not, usually sealed them and sent them upon
their way.

Although she had not said anything about it, the little affair had by no
means passed from Miss Preston's thoughts, but she was trying to think of
the wisest way of going about it, and was waiting for something to guide
her.

"If I can only win her confidence," she said to herself more than once.

CHAPTER XVII

"HAF ANYBODY SEEN MY UMBREL?"

It was the last week in February, and in a few days the school dance was
to be given. One afternoon a dozen or more girls were gathered in Ethel's
room to see her dress which had been sent out from town. It was as dainty
an aff