of the utmost possible seriousness.
It was perfect and immovable; and for a certainty if he had something
excruciatingly funny to tell me it would be all the same.

He gazed at me earnestly and delivered himself of some weighty remarks on
Mrs. Fyne's desire to befriend, counsel, and guide young girls of all
sorts on the path of life. It was a voluntary mission. He approved his
wife's action and also her views and principles in general.

All this with a solemn countenance and in deep measured tones. Yet
somehow I got an irresistible conviction that he was exasperated by
something in particular. In the unworthy hope of being amused by the
misfortunes of a fellow-creature I asked him point-blank what was wrong
now.

What was wrong was that a girl-friend was missing. She had been missing
precisely since six o'clock that morning. The woman who did the work of
the cottage saw her going out at that hour, for a walk. The pedestrian
Fyne's ideas of a walk were extensive, but the girl did not turn up for
lunch, nor yet for tea, nor yet for dinner. She had not turned up by
footpath, road or rail. He had been reluctant to make inquiries. It
would have set all the village talking. The Fynes had expected her to
reappear every moment, till the shades of the night and the silence of
slumber had stolen gradually over the wide and peaceful rural landscape
commanded by the cottage.

After telling me that much Fyne sat helpless in unconclusive agony. Going
to bed was out of the question--neither could any steps be taken just
then. What to do with himself he did not know!

I asked him if this was the same young lady I saw a day or two before I
went to town? He really could not remember. Was she a girl with dark
hair and blue eyes? I asked further. He really couldn't tell what
colour her eyes were. He was very unobservant except as to the
peculiarities of footpaths, on which he was an authority.

I thought with amazement and some admiration that Mrs. Fyne's young
disciples were to her husband's gravity no more than evanescent shadows.
However, with but little hesitation Fyne ventured to affirm that--yes,
her hair was of some dark shade.

"We had a good deal to do with that girl first and last," he explained
solemnly; then getting up as if moved by a spring he snatched his cap off
the table. "She may be back in the cottage," he cried in his bass voice.
I followed him out on the road.

It was one of those dewy, clea