o plain when
once understood that the hunters laughed at their own stupidity.

Even Judge Moore and the old Colonel were swept into the game, and Mrs.
MacIntyre's silvery hair bent just as eagerly as Elise's dark curls over
each suspected spot and out-of-the-way corner until she found the volume
of essays that had been hidden for her.

By quarter-past six every one's search had been successful except Rob's.
"It would take a Christopher Columbus to find this place," he said,
scowling at his verse. "And I'd be willing to bet anything that it isn't
the bank that Shakespeare had in mind. Give me a hint, Lloyd." He held
out the card:

"I know a bank where the wild thyme grows.
Unseen it lies, unsung by bard.
Something keeps watch there, no man knows,
And over your gift it's standing guard."

"I haven't the faintest idea what it is," she said. "Betty wrote so many
of them yestahday aftahnoon while I was at the pah'ty, and she wouldn't
tell me this one. She said she thought you'd suahly guess it, but she
didn't want you to have a hint from any one. Come ovah to-morrow, and
we'll find it if we have to turn the house upside down."

The sleighs had made one trip to Oaklea and returned for another load,
when Rob finally gave up the search. Lloyd and Gay climbed into the same
seat, and, as they cuddled down among the warm robes, Gay caught Lloyd's
hand in an impetuous squeeze.

"Oh, I'm having such a good time!" she exclaimed. "I've been in a dizzy
whirl ever since five o'clock this morning. I never had a sleigh-ride
before to-day. I don't wonder that Betty calls this the House Beautiful.
Look back at it now. It's fairy-land!" A light was streaming from every
window, and the snow sparkled like diamonds in the moonlight.

The drive to Oaklea was so short that the Judge and Mrs. Moore were
welcoming them at the door before Gay had fairly begun her account of
the day's happening. Dinner was announced almost immediately, and she
was ushered into one of the largest dining-rooms she had ever seen, and
seated at the long table. Such a large Christmas tree formed the
centrepiece that she could catch only an occasional glimpse through its
branches of Lloyd, seated on the other side between Malcolm and John
Baylor.

Gay was between Ranald and Rob. While she kept up a lively chatter,
first with one and then the other, a sentence floating across the table
now and then made her long to he