t an hour and a half before, supposedly for home.
"How did he leave?" Mrs. Stanlock inquired nervously.
"In his automobile," was the answer.
That being the case, he ought to have been home more than an hour ago.
His office was in the city and he could easily make the run in fifteen
minutes.
Thoroughly alarmed, Mrs. Stanlock called up the police, stated the
circumstances and asked that a search be made for her husband.
Two hours more elapsed and the whole neighborhood was alarmed. The
news spread rapidly and was communicated by phone to most of Mr.
Stanlock's friends and acquaintances throughout the city. The search
was growing in scope and sensation. Treachery was suspected, a tragedy
was feared.
Then suddenly and calmly, Mr. Stanlock reappeared at home, driving the
machine himself. He had a thrilling story to tell of his experiences.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI.
THE PUNSTER MAKES A FIND.
When Marion Stanlock selected the term High Peak as her Camp Fire
name, her deliberations carried her back from Hiawatha Institute to
the scene of most of the years of her child life in Hollyhill.
Confronted with the task of choosing a name, she first consulted her
ideals to determine what associations she wished to have in mind when
in after years she recalled the motive and circumstances of her
selection.
Home surroundings had always had much of beauty for Marion. From the
beginning of his business career, Mr. Stanlock had had a large income
and was able to supply his family with many of the expensive luxuries,
as well as all the so-called necessities of life. But for Marion the
artificial luxuries had little special attraction. She accepted them
as a matter of course, but that is about all the claim they had upon
her. She enjoyed the use of her father's automobiles, but she wondered
sometimes at the scheme of things which entitled her to an electric
runabout or a limousine and a chauffeur, while thousands of other
quite as deserving girls were not nearly as well favored.
The ability and the disposition to look at things occasionally from
this point of view contributed much to the generosity of Marion's
nature. She was a favorite among rich and poor alike, except among
those rich who could "understand" why the wealthy ought to be
specially favored, and those poor too narrow and circumscribed to
credit any wealthy person with genuine generosity.
Being of this artless and un
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