e too terrible to think of.

The Judge was about to notify the authorities when Sam Wilkins the
colored steward on their train, walked in leading Joy, a woe-begone
little creature, tear-stained and tired.

"Why Joy Evans! You----" Then catching sight of the girl's white
face, Bet ran and threw her arms about her. "You darling! We thought
you were lost and you were at the train all the time. Oh, Joy dear!"
Tears came to Bet's eyes.

Joy did not break down and cry again until she had reached her own
room. Then the tears came in a flood.

"Oh, I was so frightened," she sobbed.

When she had quieted down, half an hour later, she told her story. "I
woke up hours and hours before the rest of you and I couldn't sleep.
And when I'm at home I always go walking early in the morning. So I
walked up the street leading to the Capitol."

"Yes, we know. We went up there, thinking we'd meet you coming back.
How did you get lost? The hotel is at the end of the street."

"Just you go up there and look!" Joy's eyes snapped, but in a minute
her sense of humor returned. "I wouldn't have believed it possible to
get lost, for, as you say, the hotel is at the end of the street
leading up there."

"Then what happened?"

"Oh, I'm so dumb!" began Joy.

"Tell us something we don't know!" laughed Kit.

"Well, I didn't look at the name of the street. And that old Capitol!
Girls, I don't care if I never see it again! It stands up there on
that hill as if it were the most important thing in the world, and
streets lead up to it from _everywhere_, like the spokes of a wheel.
_All_ the streets lead to the Capitol!"

"And you didn't know which street you came up?" asked Kit.

"That's it. So I walked down all those streets, up and down and up and
down. Why I've seen that building from every angle. It was terrible!"

"Why didn't you just take a taxi to the hotel?" asked the practical
Shirley.

"Oh, I'm not so dumb. I thought of that!" exclaimed Joy with a toss of
her head. "But the taxi man laughed at me. I didn't know the name of
the hotel or the name of the street, and I'd already told him I didn't
have any money."

"You poor little kid," soothed Bet.

"He finally went away and I saw him make a sign to another taxi driver
as much as to say I was crazy. Then I got frightened for fear they'd
speak to me and laugh some more, so I ran away."

"And did you go down all those streets again?" asked Shirley.

"No, I was