ooked eagerly at the door. The parlor-maid came in
with a note between her finger and thumb.

"She is not there," said Mr. Gresley, in a shaking voice. "I wrote Mr.
Pratt such a guarded letter, saying Hester had imprudently run across to
see them on her return home, and how grateful I was to Mrs. Pratt for
not allowing her to return, as it had begun to snow. He says he and Mrs.
Pratt have not seen her."

"James," said Mrs. Gresley, "where _is_ she?"

A second step shuffled across the hail, and Fraeulein stood in the
door-way. Her pale face was drawn with anxiety. In both hands she
clutched a trailing skirt plastered with snow, hitched above a pair of
large goloshed feet, into which the legs were grafted without ankles.

"She has not return?"

"No," said Mr. Gresley, "and she is not with the Pratts."

"I know always she is not wiz ze Pratts," said Fraeulein, scornfully.
"She never go to Pratt if she is in grief. I go out at half seven this
morning to ze Br-r-rowns, but Miss Br-r-rown know nozing. I go to
Wilderleigh, I see Mrs. Loftus still in bed, but she is not there. I go
to Evannses, I go to Smeeth, I go last to Mistair Valsh, but she is not
there."

Mr. Gresley began to experience something of what Fraeulein had been
enduring all night.

"She would certainly not go from my house to a Dissenter's," he said,
stiffly. "You might have saved yourself the trouble of calling there,
Fraeulein."

"She like Mr. and Mrs. Valsh. She gives them her book."

Fraeulein's voice drowned the muffled rumbling of a carriage and a ring
at the bell, the handle of which, uninjured amid the chaos, kept watch
above the remains of the late porch.

The Bishop stood a moment in the little hall, while the maid went into
the dining-room to tell the Gresleys of his arrival. His eyes rested on
the pile of letters on the table, on the dead flowers beside them. They
had been so beautiful yesterday when he gave them to Hester. Hester
herself had been so pretty yesterday.

The maid came back and asked him to "step" into the dining-room.

Mr. and Mrs. Gresley had risen from their chairs. Their eyes were fixed
anxiously upon him. Fraeulein gave a little shriek and rushed at him.

"She is viz you?" she gasped, shaking him by the arm.

"She is with me," said the Bishop, looking only at Fraeulein, and taking
her shaking hands in his.

"Thank God," said Mr. Gresley, and Mrs. Gresley sat down and began to
cry.

Some of the sternness melt