t
to hear this morning: you know how she puts things off. The mid-day post
will be in directly: perhaps you'll hear then. Open the letter now and set
your mind at rest."

The envelope was torn open. "Now, you'll see he wrote it on the 18th--Good
Heavens! it's dated yesterday!"

"MY DEAR EMMELINE: Since Miss Crawford wishes you to remain two days
longer for this lesson you talk of, I can have no possible objection, but
I wish you could have let me know a little sooner. You very thoughtfully
say you will not give me the trouble of writing if I grant your request. I
suppose it never occurred to you that by the time your letter reached me
every arrangement had been made for your arrival--a greater trouble, which
might have been avoided if you had written earlier. Neither did you give
me much choice in the matter.

"But I will not find fault just when you are coming home. I took you at
your word when your letter arrived yesterday, and did not write. But
to-day it has occurred to me that after all you might like a line, and
that Miss Crawford would be glad to know that you will be met at the end
of your journey."

Compliments to the schoolmistress followed, and the signature,

"HENRY NASH."

The two women read this epistle with intense anxiety. But while Miss
Crawford was painfully deciphering it, and had only realized the terrible
fact that Emmeline was lost, the girl's quicker brain had snatched its
meaning at a glance. She saw the cunning scheme to secure two days of
unsuspected liberty. Who had planned this? Who had so cleverly dissuaded
Mr. Nash from writing? And what had the brainless, sentimental school-girl
done with the time?

"Where is she?" cried Miss Crawford, clinging feebly to Judith. "Oh, has
there been some accident?"

"No accident," said Judith. "Do you not see that it was planned
beforehand? She never thought of staying till Friday."

"No, never. Oh, my dear, I don't seem able to understand. Don't you think
perhaps my head will be clearer in a minute or two? Where can she be?"

The poor old lady looked vaguely about, as if Miss Nash might be playing
hide-and-seek behind the furniture. Her face was veined and ghastly. She
hardly comprehended the blow which was falling upon her, but she shivered
hopelessly, and thought she should understand soon, and looked up at
Judith with a mute appeal in her dim eyes.

"Where can she be?" The girl echoed Miss Crawford's words half to herself.
"What ought we t