sts of the hotel. The Colonel now came and
rapped upon the panels, but without any better result.

"I think she must have left her room and is perhaps in the parlor, or
in the hotel lobby," he said.

A chambermaid was passing through the hall and overheard the remark.

"The party in 216 has been up a long time, sir," she asserted. "I found
the door ajar at six o'clock, and so I went in and made up the room."

"Poor Alora!" exclaimed Mary Louise laughingly; "she was too excited to
sleep, and, as you say, we shall probably find her somewhere about the
hotel, enjoying the sights."

But they could not find the girl anywhere in the hotel. After a long
and careful search for her, Colonel Hathaway left word at the desk that
if his room or Mary Louise's room was called, to report that they would
be found in the breakfast room.

The old gentleman was distinctly annoyed as they sat down to breakfast.

"The foolish girl is wandering about the streets, somewhere," he
complained, "and it was unmannerly to leave the hotel without
consulting me, since she is our guest and in my care."

Mary Louise's sweet face wore a troubled expression.

"It is not like Alora, Gran'pa Jim," she asserted in defense of her
friend. "Usually I have found her quite considerate." Then, after a
pause: "I--I hope nothing has happened to her."

"Don't worry," he replied. "She's a wide-awake girl and has a tongue in
her head, so she can't get lost. Why, Mary Louise, Alora knows the city
well, for she used to live in Chicago with her mother."

"Until she was eleven. That was four years ago. But I did not think of
her getting lost. The automobiles, you know, are so thick----"

"Yes, dear; and there's the lake, and the railroad crossings, and the
street cars; but the chances are against our little friend's being
drowned or run over, especially so early in the day, when there isn't
much traffic. Again I ask you not to worry."

But Mary Louise couldn't help worrying. They lingered over the
breakfast, but Alora did not join them. Then they waited around the
hotel until nearly noon, without receiving a word from her. Finally
Colonel Hathaway, too, became nervous. He telephoned the central police
station to inquire if a young girl of Alora's description had met with
an accident. There was no record of such an accident, but in half an
hour a detective came to the hotel and asked for the Colonel.

"Tell me all the particulars of the young lady's disappear