amation marks and dashes.

She was very enthusiastic about Neuilly, and was sure she would be
quite happy there, and that the heat would only make her feel at home.
She had smiled with delight at intervals all day, she said, when she
thought of the rage of Mademoiselle Eugenie, and her futile efforts to
trace her. She supposed a full description of her clothes had been
given, but that would be no good, as the American had brought her a
tweed cap and a cycling cape, and they had thrown her hat away by the
roadside. She concluded by saying that Mr. Morton had been very kind,
though he did not seem to have a very high opinion of her character,
and had given her enough grandfatherly advice to last her a lifetime,
and made her promise to write to Mademoiselle Eugenie.

Barbara tore up both letters, and then went out to visit Mademoiselle
Vire, and relieved her mind by telling her all about it.

"It seems so deceptive and horrid to keep quiet when they are
discussing things and wondering where she is," she concluded. "But she
was to write to Mademoiselle Eugenie to-day, and I really don't feel
inclined to tell her or the Loires the share I had in it."

"I hardly think you need, my child," Mademoiselle Vire said, patting
her on the shoulder. "Sometimes silence is wisest, and, of _course_,
you tell your own people. I do not know, indeed, if I had been young
like you, that I should not have done just the same; and perhaps, even
if I had been Alice, I might have done as she did."

Barbara laughed, and shook her head. She could never imagine the
elegant little Mademoiselle Vire conniving at anybody's escape,
especially through a bath-house window! But it cheered her to think
that the little lady was not shocked at the escapade; and she went back
quite fortified, and ready for supper in the garden with the widower
and his family, whom Mademoiselle Therese had been magnanimous enough
to invite.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WAYSIDE INN.

It was wonderful how quickly the excitement about Alice Meynell died
down. Mademoiselle Therese went to call upon her former instructress,
who told her, with evident reluctance, that the girl had gone to Paris
with a friend who had appeared unexpectedly, and her father wished her
to remain there for the present.

"Of course," Mademoiselle Therese said, in retailing her visit, "she
will wish to keep it quiet; such things are not a good advertisement,
and they will speak of it no more. I