led Betty.

After lunch Mollie began to take a less gloomy view of the situation and
hope, which in youth can never long be forced into the background, began
to revive.

"In the first place," Betty argued, as she began to clear away the
dishes and Amy rose to help her, "it couldn't have been an accident, or
your mother would have read about it in the papers. The children are old
enough to tell their names and where they live."

"I know," said Mollie, while the troublesome tears welled to her eyes
again. "But it's possible they may have been unconscious, and then they
wouldn't be able to tell anything."

"But there would have been at least an announcement describing the
children," Amy argued in support of Betty.

"And, anyway, pretty nearly everybody in Deepdale knows the twins,"
Grace added.

"Well, then, there are only two or three things left that might have
happened," said Mollie, her lips quivering. "It's barely possible they
may have wandered off into the woods and gotten lost. In that case
somebody will have to hurry up and find them or they will just stay
there and s-starve! And that's almost worse than being run over."

"Well, with everybody in Deepdale, civilians as well as police,
searching for them," said Betty confidently, "I don't think there is
very much chance of their starving to death. If that's the solution, I
shouldn't wonder but that they are safe at home now with everybody
rejoicing."

Mollie's face brightened a little at this picture, but almost
immediately clouded over again.

"But we don't know that," she said. "And until we do, I'm not going to
let myself get too happy."

"I wonder," she said suddenly, after the girls had cleared away the
lunch and had perched themselves on the porch railing, "just what I
ought to do first. Send a telegram to mother, I suppose," answering her
own question.

"Yes, I think I would," said Betty, adding, as Mollie got up with
characteristic impulsiveness and started for the house: "Do you mind
telling us what you are going to say in it--about going home, I mean?"

Mollie paused uncertainly.

"I--I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's no
question but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn't
only be in the way."

"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost a
certainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps are
found already, and in that case you would have all your tri