re
in Chicago, since I couldn't tell just when I should arrive."

"Where are you stopping?"

"On board the schooner that brought me. She is lying quite near here, at
a wharf in the river."

"Can you stay on board till to-morrow?"

Vinnie thought the captain and his wife would be glad to keep her.

"Though it isn't very nice," she added, "now that they are discharging
the cargo."

"Perhaps you had better go to the Farmers' Home, where my friend and I
have put up," said Jack.

"You at the Farmers' Home! Why couldn't I have known it?" said Vinnie.
"It was there I went to inquire for Long Woods people, and met that
scape-grace. When do you go home?"

"We start early to-morrow morning. You can go with us as well as not,--a
good deal better than not!" said the overjoyed Jack. "Nothing but a
little load of groceries. You shall go home with me to North Mills; Mrs.
Lanman will be glad to see you. Then I'll drive you over to Long Woods
in three or four days."

"Three or four days!" exclaimed Vinnie, not daring to be as happy as
these welcome words might have made her. "I should like much to visit
your friends; but I must get to my sister's as soon as possible."

Jack's face clouded.

"Vinnie, I'm afraid you don't know what you have undertaken. I can't
bear the thought of your going into that family. Why do you? The Lanmans
will be delighted to have you stay with them."

"O, but I must go where I am needed," Vinnie answered. "And you mustn't
say a word against it. You must help me, Jack!"

"They need you enough, Heaven knows, Vinnie!" Jack felt that he ought
not to say another word to discourage her, so he changed the subject.
"Which way now is your schooner?"

Vinnie said she would show him; but she wished to buy a little present
for the captain's wife on the way. As they passed along the street, she
made him tell all he knew of her sister's family; and then asked if he
had heard from George Greenwood lately.

"Only a few days ago he sent me a magazine with a long story of his in
it, founded on our adventure with the pickpockets," replied Jack. "He
writes me a letter about once a month. You hear from him, of course?"

"O yes. And he sends me magazines. He has wonderful talent, don't you
think so?"

And the two friends fell to praising the absent George.

"I wonder if you have noticed one thing?" said Vinnie.

"What, in particular?"

"That Grace Manton has been the heroine of all his last stories."

"I