red silk with "r'yal purple" trimmings. Nevertheless, Janice
had now all but given up hope for her father's life.

The uncertainty connected with his fate was very hard for the young
girl to bear. She had the thought with her all the time--a picture in
her mind of a man, blindfolded, his wrists fastened behind him,
standing with his back against a sunburnt wall and a file of ragged,
barefooted soldiers in front of him.

In desperation she had written a letter addressed personally to
"General Juan Dicampa," sending it to the same place to which she
addressed her father's letters. She did this almost in fear of the
consequences. Who would read her letter now that the guerrilla chief
was dead?

In the appeal Janice pleaded for her father's life and for news of him.
Days passed and there was no reply. But the letter, with her name and
address on the outside, was not returned to her.

Broxton Day's fate was discussed no more before Janice at home. And
other people who knew of her trouble, save Nelson Haley, soon forgot
it. For the girl did not "wear her heart on her sleeve."

As for the Druggs--Hopewell and his wife--they were so worried about
little Lottie's case that they had thought for nobody's troubles but
their own.

The doctors would not let the child return to Polktown at present.
They kept her all through the Summer, watching her case. And Lottie,
at a Summer school in Boston, was enjoying herself hugely. She was not
yet at an age to worry much about the future.

These months of Lottie's absence were weary ones indeed for her father.
Sometimes he wandered about the store quite distraught. 'Rill was
worried about him. He missed the solace of his violin and refused to
purchase a cheap instrument to take the place of the one he had been
obliged to sacrifice.

"No, Miss Janice," he told the girl once, when she spoke of this. "I
could not play another instrument. I am no musician. I was never
trained. It was just a natural talent that I developed, because I
found in my heart a love for the old violin my father had played so
many years.

"Through its vibrant strings I expressed deeper feelings than I could
ever express in any other way--or upon any other instrument. My lips
would never have dared tell my love for 'Rill," and he smiled in his
gentle way, "half so boldly as my violin told it! Ask her. She will
tell you that my violin courted her--not Hopewell Drugg."

"Oh, it is too, too bad!"