all position
there; following every clue that his imagination, and the acumen of
the professionals in his service, could supply;--but his patient
search was unrewarded. Eleanor had apparently vanished from the
surface of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him so simple a
matter when he first undertook it, now began to assume terrible and
abortive proportions. It was unthinkable that one little slip of a
girl untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently to elude
six determined and worldly adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax
their resources to the utmost in the effort to find her,--but the fact
remained that she was missing and continued to be missing, and the
cruel month went by and brought them no news of her.

The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart from the emotions
that had been precipitated by her developing charms, they loved her
dearly as the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed all
their young enthusiasm and energy and tenderness upon. She was the
living clay, as Gertrude had said so many years before, that they had
molded as nearly as possible to their hearts' desire. They loved her
for herself, but one and all they loved her for what they had made of
her--an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease in a world that
might so easily have crushed her utterly if they had not intervened
for her.

They kept up the search unremittingly, following false leads and
meeting with heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments. Only
Margaret had any sense of peace about her.

"I'm sure she's all right," she said; "I feel it. It's hard having her
gone, but I'm not afraid for her. She'll work it out better than we
could help her to. It's a beautiful thing to be young and strong and
free, and she'll get the beauty out of it."

"I think perhaps you're right, Margaret," David said. "You almost
always are. It's the bread and butter end of the problem that worries
me."

Margaret smiled at him quaintly.

"The Lord provides," she said. "He'll provide for our ewe lamb, I'm
sure."

"You speak as if you had it on direct authority."

"I think perhaps I have," she said gravely.

Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as the weeks passed, and the
strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her
the letter that Eleanor had written him.

"Sweet, isn't she?" he said, as Gertrude returned it to him, smiling
through her tears.

"She's a darling," Gertrude s