herwood, rather
weakly. "Where'd you have it?"

"In my closet," choked Nan. "She's a great, big, beautiful thing! I know
somebody must be playing a joke on me."

"Nobody here, Nannie," said Uncle Henry, with decision. "You may be sure
of that." But he looked at Rafe sternly. That young man thought it the
better part of wisdom to say no more.

In broken sentences the girl told her innocent secret, and why she had
kept the doll hidden. Aunt Kate, after, all, seemed to understand.

"My poor dear!" she crooned, patting Nan's hand between her hard palms.
"We'll all look for the dolly. Surely it can't have been taken out of
the house."

"And who'd even take it out of her closet?" demanded Tom, almost as
stern as his father.

"It surely didn't walk away of itself," said Aunt Kate.

She took a small hand lamp and went with Nan to the east chamber. They
searched diligently, but to no good end, save to assure Nan that Beulah
had utterly disappeared.

As far as could be seen the screens at the windows of the bedroom had
not been disturbed. But who would come in from outside to steal Nan's
doll? Indeed, who would take it out of the closet, anyway? The girl
was almost sure that nobody had known she had it. It was strange, very
strange indeed.

Big girl that she was, Nan cried herself to sleep that night over the
mystery. The loss of Beulah seemed to snap the last bond that held her
to the little cottage in Amity street, where she had spent all her happy
childhood.

Chapter XXIV. THE SMOKING TREE

Nan awoke to a new day with the feeling that the loss of her treasured
doll must have been a bad dream. But it was not. Another search of her
room and the closet assured her that it was a horrid reality.

She might have lost many of her personal possessions without a pang;
but not Beautiful Beulah. Nan could not tell her aunt or the rest of
the family just how she felt about it. She was sure they would not
understand.

The doll had reminded her continually of her home life. Although the
stay of her parents in Scotland was much more extended than they or Nan
had expected, the doll was a link binding the girl to her old home life
which she missed so much.

Her uncle and aunt had tried to make her happy here at Pine Camp. As far
as they could do so they had supplied the love and care of Momsey and
Papa Sherwood. But Nan was actually ill for her old home and her old
home associations.

On this morning, by herself in her