eechim said by her anxiety, but I thought
mebby by the agony in Dorothy's sweet eyes as well as his own good
heart, didn't leave a stone unturned in his efforts to find 'em. But
they had disappeared utterly, no trace could be found of 'em. They had
been seen during the evening with the two young men they had got
acquainted with and that I didn't like. They had been seen speaking
with them as they came out of the shop where Dorothy had sent
Aronette, and the young men could not be found.

Well, we had all searched for three days without finding any trace of
the two missing girls. Everything wuz ready for our departure, but
Dorothy said that she could not, could not go without Aronette, but
Robert Strong said and believed that the child was dead. He had come
to the belief that she and Lucia by some accident had fallen into the
water and wuz drowned. Dorothy had cried herself sick and she looked
wan and white, but bein' so sweet dispositioned she give up when we
all said that we must go before long, and said that she would go too,
though I knew that her heart would remain there wanderin' round in
them queer streets huntin' for her lost one. The morning of the third
day after they wuz lost I wuz down in the parlor, when a man come in
and spoke to Robert Strong, and they both went out together talking
earnestly, and I see in Robert's face a look of horrow and surprise
that I had never seen in it before; and the first time Robert saw me
alone after that he told me the dretful news. He said that the man
that spoke to him was a detective he had employed, and the evening
before he had come acrost a man who had been out of town since the
night Aronette wuz lost. This man told the detective that he saw her
and Lucia and the two young men coming out of a saloon late at night,
staggering and reeling they all wuz, and they disappeared down a cross
street towards another licensed house of ruin. Licensed by Christian
America! Oh, my achin' heart to think on't! "I wonder if our govermunt
is satisfied now," I broke out, "since it has ruined her, one of the
sweetest girls in the world. But how did they ever entice 'em into
that saloon?" sez I.

"They might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve
lunches at some of them; of course they didn't know what kind of a
place it was. And after they wuz made stupid drunk they didn't know or
care where they went."

"I wonder if America is satisfied now!" I sez agin, "reachin' out h