cried Janice. "And that fellow down at Lem
Parraday's hotel has never succeeded in disposing of the fiddle. I
wish he would sell it back to you."

"I could not buy it at the price he gave me for it," said Hopewell,
sadly shaking his head. "No use to think of it."

But Janice thought of it--and thought of it often. If daddy were
only--only _successful_ again! That is the way she put it in her mind.
If he could only send her some more money! There was many a thing
Janice Day needed, or wanted. But she thought that she would deny
herself much for the sake of recovering the violin for Hopewell Drugg.

Meanwhile nothing further had come to light regarding the missing
collection of gold coins. No third coin had been put into
circulation--in Polktown, at least. The four school committeemen who
were responsible for the collection had long since paid the owner out
of their own pockets rather than be put to further expense in law.

Jim Narnay's baby was growing weaker and weaker. The little thing had
been upon the verge of passing on so many times, that her parents had
grown skeptical of the doctor's prophecy--that she could not live out
the Summer.

It seemed to Janice, however, that the little body was frailer, the
little face wanner, the tiny smile more pitiful, each time she went to
Pine Cove to see the baby. Nelson, who had come back to town and again
taken up his abode with the overjoyed Mrs. Beaseley while he prepared
for the opening of the school, urged Janice not to go so often to the
Narnay cottage.

"You've enough on your heart and mind, dear girl," he said to her.
"Why burden yourself with other people's troubles?"

"Why--do you know, Nelson," she told him, thoughtfully, "that is one of
the things I have learned of late."

"What is one of the things you have learned?"

"I have been learning, Nelson, that the more we share other people's
burdens the less weight our own assume. It's wonderful! When I am
thinking of the poor little Narnay baby, I am not thinking of daddy
away down there in Mexico. And when I am worrying about little Lottie
Drugg--or even about Hopewell's lost violin--I am not thinking about
those awful gold coins and _who_ could have taken them----"

"Here! here, young woman!" exclaimed the schoolmaster, stopping short,
and shaking his head at her. "_That's_ certainly not your personal
trouble."

"Oh, but, Nelson," she said shyly. "Whatever troubles _you_ must
trouble _me_