Dainty's flight.

She had also mentioned the girl's bad behavior and delicate condition,
blaming Ailsa for having recommended such a girl to her favor.

The young girl's brown eyes flashed with resentment as she answered:

"Miss White, I will not allow you to speak unkindly of my dear friend.
She was very unhappy, I know, and, to speak plainly, I suspected her
condition some time ago; but I would not wound her feelings by referring
to it, hoping that she would see fit to explain matters herself later
on. But she is a noble girl, and I have not lost confidence in her by
what you tell me, for I believe Dainty was secretly married, and that
the truth will come out some day."

"Perhaps you know where she is now? I feel very uneasy over her fate,
and am sorry now that I spoke so harshly to the poor girl in my
surprise!" exclaimed Miss White, softening under the influence of
Ailsa's loving faith.

"Sorrow will not bring her back now. You should have shown a more
Christian spirit to the unhappy girl, and perhaps she might have given
you her confidence, showing you that she was not as bad as you thought.
But I do not know where she is. You know, Miss White, I have had to
nurse the dear little children through bad colds, and have not seen
Dainty for over two weeks. Perhaps the poor girl thought I had forsaken
her, too," added Ailsa, bursting into tears.

Miss White was a weak woman, but not a cruel one. Ailsa's distress moved
her to such keen sympathy that she wept too, declaring that if only she
could find the sweet, unfortunate child she would make amends for her
unkindness.

"If you hear from her you'll let me know, Ailsa, won't you? And I shall
tell Mr. Sparks he did wrong to try to turn me against Dainty. She is a
good girl, I believe, after all, and I'll stand her friend, even after
I'm married, if she will forgive me for last night," she said, before
she went away.

Ailsa wept most bitterly, for she feared that it would be long ere she
saw Dainty's sweet face again.

"She thinks I have forsaken her, and she will be too proud to let me
know where she is," she thought.

Then came the startling discovery of the personals offering a reward for
news of Dainty Chase, and of the marriage license that had been granted
to her and Love Ellsworth.

Ailsa hunted up the back numbers of the newspapers, and found that the
personals had been running more than a week, and that they were inserted
in all the city journals.