d with alarmed questioning at him.

"I have come for Miss Ewing, her uncle--" James began, but Annie
interrupted him, her face paling perceptibly. "Clemency," she said;
"why, she left here directly after lunch. She said she must go. She felt
anxious about her mother, and did not want to leave her any longer.
Hasn't she come home yet?"

"No," said James.

"And you didn't meet her? You must have met her."

"No."

The two stood staring at each other. A delicate old face peeped out of
the door at the right of the halls. It was like Annie's, only dimmed by
age, and shaded by two leaf-like folds of gray hair as smooth as silver.
"Oh, mother, Clemency has not got home!" Annie cried. "Dr. Elliot, this
is my mother. Mother, Clemency has not got home. What do you think has
happened?"

The lady came out in the hall. She had a quiet serenity of manner, but
her soft eyes looked anxious. "Could she have stopped anywhere, dear?"
she said.

"You know, mother, there is not a single house between here and her own
where Clemency ever stops," said Annie. She was trembling all over.

James made a movement to go. "What are you going to do?" cried Annie.

"Stop at every house between here and Doctor Gordon's, and ask if the
people have seen her," replied James.

Then he ran back to the buggy, and heard as he went a little nervous
call from Annie, "Oh, let us know if--"

"I will let you know when I find her, Miss Lipton," he called back as he
gathered up the lines. He kept his word. He did stop at every house, and
at every one all knowledge of the girl was disclaimed. There were not
many houses, the road being a lonely one. He was met mostly by women who
seemed at once to share his anxiety. One woman especially asked very
carefully for a description of Clemency, and he gave a minute one. "You
say her mother is ill, too," said the woman. She was elderly, but still
pretty. She had kept her tints of youth as some withered flowers do,
and there seemed still to cling to her the atmosphere of youth, as
fragrance clings to dry rose leaves. She was dressed in rather a
superior fashion to most of the countrywomen, in soft lavender cashmere
which fitted her slight, tall figure admirably. James had a glimpse
behind her of a pretty interior: a room with windows full of blooming
plants, of easy-chairs and many cushioned sofas, beside book-cases. The
woman looked, so he thought, like one who had some private anxiety of
her own. She kept peerin