eart."

The sound of the opening door aroused her, and looking up she said,
pointing toward the vacant bed, "'Leny's gone; I've killed her."

Corinda waited for no more, but darting through the hall and down the
stairs, she rushed into the dining-room, announcing the startling
news that "old miss had done murdered Miss 'Lena, and hid her under
the bed!"

"What _will_ come next!" exclaimed Mrs. Livingstone, following her
husband to his mother's room where a moment sufficed to explain the
whole.

'Lena was gone, and the shock had for a time unsettled the poor old
lady's reason. The sight of his mother's distress aroused all the
better nature of Mr. Livingstone, and tenderly soothing her, he told
her that 'Lena should be found--he would go for her himself. Carrie,
too, was touched, and with unwonted kindness she gathered up the
scattered locks, and tying on the muslin cap, placed her hand for an
instant on the wrinkled brow.

"Keep it there; it feels soft, like 'Leny's," said Mrs. Nichols, the
tears gushing out at this little act of sympathy.

Meantime, Mr. Livingstone, after a short consultation with his wife,
hurried off to the neighbors, none of whom knew aught of the
fugitive, and all of whom offered their assistance in searching.
Never once did it occur to Mr. Livingstone that she might have taken
the cars, for that he knew would need money, and he supposed she had
none in her possession. By a strange coincidence, too, the depot
agent who sold her the ticket, left the very next morning for
Indiana, where he had been intending to go for some time, and where
he remained for more than a week, thus preventing the information
which he could otherwise have given concerning her flight.
Consequently, Mr. Livingstone returned each night, weary and
disheartened, to his home, where all the day long his mother moaned
and wept, asking for her 'Lena.

At last, as day after day went by and brought no tidings of the
wanderer, she ceased to ask for her, but whenever a stranger came to
the house, she would whisper softly to them, "'Leny's dead. I killed
her; did you know it?" at the same time passing to them the crumpled
note, which she ever held in her hand.

'Lena was a general favorite in the neighborhood which had so
recently denounced her, and when it became known that she was gone,
there came a reaction, and those who had been the most bitter against
her now changed their opinion, wondering how they could ever have