e latest grace and twist. She remembered
Ernestine's little graceful ways, and profited by the remembrance,
thereby driving Kat to the verge of desperation, by giving frequent
lectures on the necessity of sitting still gracefully, and walking
without a skip or jump every third step. With all their little growing
differences, they were just as devoted and inseparable as ever. Kittie
would sit and sew with a lady-like air, and a posy in her belt, while
Kat would lounge in the window-seat, and read aloud, or amuse them with
nonsense; or, if they went out on the pond, Kittie would wear her
gloves and ply her oar with an eye to grace, while Kat would, perhaps,
be encased in a sun-bonnet, or be bareheaded and row as if on a contract
to outdo the champion club in existence. In their work was the same
little mark of distinction, and so now-a-days it was very easy to tell
which was Kittie and which was Kat.

It was just a year since Ernestine had gone, and such a long, sad,
hopeless year! Not a clue or trace of any kind could they find except
that she had gone to New York. The Canfield ticket agent had had his
suspicions when a lady had bought a ticket and gone on the midnight
train; but it was none of his business, to be sure; so she had gone on
her way unmolested, and farther than that, they knew nothing. Where she
went on reaching the city, no one knew, though no mode of search had
been left untried, and no expense spared, either by Mrs. Dering, or the
relatives and friends who so heartily sympathized in her heart-broken
search. There was nothing, from himself to the last dollar he possessed,
that Mr. Congreve did not offer; and Jean sent a tear-stained note with
a crisp ten dollars--all she had, and saying: "Mama, please spend it to
find Ernestine; and I ask God every few minutes, if He won't please let
us have her again."

But it had all been in vain. In the long days when Ernestine had sat and
thought and grieved, she must have matured her plans well, or else she
had gone blindly forth, on the wild impulse of despair, and been
swallowed in the black wickedness of the great city, into which she
went. It was a ceaseless question in the anxious hearts of those who
loved her, but there never came any answer; and the days and weeks
dragged into months until the year had rolled around, and they had heard
nothing. The name of the lost became more precious than ever, and many
things she had left behind, that all spoke so eloquent