ll when she came down, dressed for a walk, and wearing a
veil over her face. I asked her where she was going. She answered
for a walk, it might help her toothache. An hour afterward Virginie
returned. Her first question was for Rose. I informed her she was
gone out.

"Then," exclaimed Virginie, "it must have been Rose that I met in
the next street, walking with a gentleman. I thought the dress and
figure were hers, but I could not see her face for a thick veil.
The gentleman was tall and dark, and very handsome."

Half an hour later, Rose came back. We teased her a little about
the gentleman; but she put it off quite indifferently, saying he
was an acquaintance she had encountered in the street, and that she
had promised to go with him next morning to call on a lady-friend
of hers, a Mrs. Major Forsyth. We thought no more about it; and
next morning, when the gentleman called in a carriage, Rose was
quite ready, and went away with him. It was then about eleven
o'clock, and she did not return until five in the afternoon. Her
face was flushed, her manner excited, and she broke away from
Virginie and ran up to her room. All the evening her manner was
most unaccountably altered, her spirits extravagantly high, and
colour like fever in her face. She and Virginie shared the same
room, and when they went upstairs for the night, she would not go
to bed.

"You can go," she said to Virginie; "I have a long letter to write,
and you must not talk to me, dear."

Virginie went to bed. She is a very sound sleeper, and rarely
wakes, when she lies down, until morning. She fell asleep, and
never awoke all night. It was morning when she opened her eyes. She
was alone. Rose was neither in the bed nor in the room.

Virginie thought nothing of it. She got up, dressed, came down to
breakfast, expecting to find Rose before her. Rose was not before
her--she was not in the house. We waited breakfast until ten,
anxiously looking for her; but she never came. None of the servants
had seen her, but that she had gone out very early was evident; for
the house-door was unlocked and unbolted, when the kitchen-girl
came down at six in the morning. We waited all the forenoon, but
she never came. Our anxiety trebly increased when we made the
discovery that she had taken