noble editor?"

"Your noble editor has most finished," said Eunice, surveying, with
pride, her neatly printed pages. "If you could only stay next week,
Hilda, we'd let you print a number."

"I would just as soon as not," said Hilda. "I can print very nicely. I'd
like to. I'd put big, beautiful fancy capitals for the 'Echo,' and the
names of the stories in fancy capitals also, and I'd draw tail-pieces."

Eunice and Edna exchanged glances.

"It's a very great pity you can't stay," said Edna, with marked
politeness. "We can't do tail-pieces." The two little girls, Hilda and
Edna, were just enough alike to clash very often, though Edna was never
given to bragging, as Hilda sometimes was, and she was much more
unselfish.

"I can draw very well," said Hilda, serenely, and with perfect truth.
Like Edna, she had a dainty touch.

The minutes passed by, and still Cricket did not appear. Presently
auntie raised her head, and listened.

"I thought I heard Cricket calling," she said, "but I don't hear it
again."

A moment later, Eunice suddenly said:

"There certainly is some one calling. Is it Cricket?" She stood up to
listen better. A muffled cry was certainly heard.

"Children! Eunice!"

Eunice shot off the piazza.

"Yes, Cricket, where are you?" running around the house. In a few
moments she reappeared from the other side.

"Where can she be? I ran all around the barn, too. Hark! there it is
again! Cricket! where are you?"

And again every one heard the same muffled cry, "Eunice!"

"Now it sounds _in_ the house," said Mrs. Somers, going in.

They all joined in the search, running in every direction, and trying to
locate the indistinct sounds. She was evidently in trouble, but they
could not imagine why she did not tell them where she was. Somebody
suggested the garret, and they all trooped up there and searched every
corner in vain. Then closets, even to the rubbers-closet under the
stairs, were investigated. If they stood inside the house, her call
seemed to come from outside. If they went out, she seemed to be calling
from inside. After the barn and woodshed were searched, there was really
no place for her to conceal herself in.

"This is certainly the strangest thing!" said Auntie Jean, at last in
despair. "Cricket, dear child, where _are_ you?" looking up at the
trees.

"I don't know!" wailed a voice so near them that they all jumped. They
were near the open cellar window, where the coal was put in.