h," laughed Sara. "Mamma is so strict with me. I suppose
yours is too?"

"I have no mother--or father," answered Daisy. "All my life I have
lived with John Brooks and his sister Septima, on the Hurlhurst
Plantation. I call them aunt and uncle. Septima has often told me no
relationship at all existed between us."

"You are an orphan, then?" suggested the sympathetic Sara. "Is there
no one in all the world related to you?"

"Yes--no--o," answered Daisy, confusedly, thinking of Rex, her young
husband, and of the dearest relationship in all the world which
existed between them.

"What a pity," sighed Sara. "Well, Daisy," she cried, impulsively,
throwing both her arms around her and giving her a hearty kiss, "you
and I will be all the world to each other. I shall tell you all my
secrets and you must tell me yours. There's some girls you can trust,
and some you can't. If you tell them your secrets, the first time you
have a spat your secret is a secret no longer. Every girl in the
school knows all about it; of course you are sure to make up again.
But," added Sara, with a wise expression, "after you are once
deceived, you can never trust them again."

"I have never known many girls," replied Daisy. "I do not know how
others do, but I'm sure you can always trust my friendship."

And the two girls sealed their compact with a kiss, just as the great
bell in the belfry rang, warning them they must be at their lessons
again--recess was over.

CHAPTER VIII.

In one of the private offices of Messrs. Tudor, Peck & Co., the shrewd
Baltimore detectives, stood Rex, waiting patiently until the senior
member of the firm should be at leisure.

"Now, my dear sir, I will attend you with pleasure," said Mr. Tudor,
sealing and dispatching the note he had just finished, and motioning
Rex to a seat.

"I shall be pleased if you will permit me to light a cigar," said Rex,
taking the seat indicated.

"Certainly, certainly; smoke, if you feel so inclined, by all means,"
replied the detective, watching with a puzzled twinkle in his eye the
fair, boyish face of his visitor. "No, thank you," he said, as Rex
tendered him an Havana; "I never smoke during business hours."

"I wish to engage your services to find out the whereabouts
of--of--of--my wife," said Rex, hesitatingly. "She has left
me--suddenly--she fled--on the very night of our marriage!"

It hurt Rex's pride cruelly to make this admission, and a painful
flush crept up