ed from below, "Mr. Mudge!"

"Well, wife?"

"What in the name of wonder keeps you up there so long?"

"Just come up and see."

Mrs. Mudge did come up. Her husband pointed to the empty bed.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

"What about it?" she inquired, not quite comprehending.

"About that boy, Paul. When I called him I got no answer, so I came up,
and behold he is among the missing."

"You don't think he's run away, do you?" asked Mrs. Mudge startled.

"That is more than I know."

"I'll see if his clothes are here," said his wife, now fully aroused.

Her search was unavailing. Paul's clothes had disappeared as
mysteriously as their owner.

"It's a clear case," said Mr. Mudge, shaking his head; "he's gone.
I wouldn't have lost him for considerable. He was only a boy, but I
managed to get as much work out of him as a man. The question is now,
what shall we do about it?"

"He must be pursued," said Mrs. Mudge, with vehemence, "I'll have him
back if it costs me twenty dollars. I'll tell you what, husband," she
exclaimed, with a sudden light breaking in upon her, "if there's anybody
in this house knows where he's gone, it is Aunt Lucy Lee. Only last week
I caught her knitting him a pair of stockings. I might have known what
it meant if I hadn't been a fool."

"Ha, ha! So you might, if you hadn't been a fool!" echoed a mocking
voice.

Turning with sudden anger, Mrs. Mudge beheld the face of the crazy girl
peering up at her from below.

This turned her thoughts into a different channel.

"I'll teach you what I am," she exclaimed, wrathfully descending the
stairs more rapidly than she had mounted them, "and if you know anything
about the little scamp, I'll have it out of you."

The girl narrowly succeeded in eluding the grasp of her pursuer. But,
alas! for Mrs. Mudge. In her impetuosity she lost her footing, and fell
backward into a pail of water which had been brought up the night before
and set in the entry for purposes of ablution. More wrathful than ever,
Mrs. Mudge bounced into her room and sat down in her dripping garments
in a very uncomfortable frame of mind. As for Paul, she felt a personal
dislike for him, and was not sorry on some accounts to have him out of
the house. The knowledge, however, that he had in a manner defied her
authority by running away, filled her with an earnest desire to get him
back, if only to prove that it was not to be defied with impunity.

Hoping to elicit som