ile, Wollaston Lee spoke again. He was in reality
a keen-witted boy, only this was an emergency into which he had been
surprised, and which he had not foreseen, and Maria's own abnormal
mood had in a measure infected him. Presently he spoke to the point.

"What on earth are you going to do when you get to New York, anyhow?"
said he to Maria.

"Find her," replied Maria, laconically.

"But New York is a mighty big city. How do you mean to go to work?
Now I--"

Maria cut him short. "I am going right up to Her cousin's, on West
Forty-ninth Street, and find out if Evelyn is there," said she.

"But what would make the child want to go there, anyhow?"

"It was the only place she had ever been in New York," said Maria.

"But I don't see what particular reason she would have for going
there, though," said Wollaston. "How would she remember the street
and number?"

"She was an awful bright kid," said Gladys, with a momentary lapse of
reason, "and kids is queer. I know, 'cause we've got so many of 'em
to our house. Sometimes they'll remember things you don't ever think
they would. My little sister Maud remembers how my mother drowned
five kittens oncet, when she was in long clothes. We knowed she did,
'cause when the cat had kittens next time we caught her trying to
drown 'em herself. Kids is awful queer. Maud can't remember how to
spell her own name, either, and she's most six now. She spells it
M-a-u-d, when it had ought to be M-a-u-g-h-d. I shouldn't be one mite
surprised if M'ria's little sister remembered the street and number."

"Anyway, she knew her whole name, because I've heard her say it,"
said Maria. "Her cousin's name is Mrs. George B. Edison. Evelyn used
to say it, and we used to laugh."

"Oh, well, if she knew the name like that she might have found the
place all right," said Wollaston. "But what puzzles me is why she
wanted to go there, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Maria.

"I don't know," said Wollaston, "but it seems to me the best thing to
do would be to go directly to a police-office and have the chief of
police notified, and set them at work; but then I suppose your father
has done that already."

Maria turned upon him with indignation. "Go to a police-station to
find my little sister!" said she. "What would I go there for?"

"Yes, what do you suppose that kid has did?" asked Gladys.

"What would I go there for?" demanded Maria, flashing the light of
her excited, strained little face upon th