LLILILE’S HOLOCAUST,

Dick flew through the long window on to the up-
per piazza and down the trellis which made an excel-
lent ladder and was much preferred by Master Dick
as a way of descent, to the more legitimate stairway.

Round the corner he rushed, expecting to see Sam
Langmaid, and was thoroughly vexed to find only
Ellie.

“ Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to whistle like a
tomboy! The better you do it, the worse it is; fool-
ing me just when I’m driving so.hard for examination!
- ]’ve half a mind to shake you, Ellie Adams !”

When Dick got near enough to see Ellie’s pale
face, his vexation turned to anxiety.

“Whatisit, dear Ellie ? Forgive me. I was a brute.
I might have known you wouldn’t have signalled for
nothing. What is it, dear?”

“Q Dick — Baby May — oh dear, oh dear!” and
Ellie broke down completely.

‘“* Be quiet, Ellie, will you? Can’t you tell me what
you mean? What is it about Baby May? Is she
hurt or lost?”

“T don’t know,” sobbed Ellie, “whether she is
hurt or not, but she is lost; we stopped in the glade
coming home from Leslie’s and—and Isat down
and May wanted to dance in the sunshine— and I
thought it was an odd-and-end, and I read a little bit
and then I read more, and--and I looked up and
May was gone, and I hunted everywhere till it was
so dusky I couldn’t see — Dick, what shall I do!”

Dick was calm and kind, but very firm, as he spoke
rather sternly to Ellie:

“Be quiet! You’ve done mischief enough with
your confounded story-book, don’t make it worse by
going into hysterics. We can’t do anything till papa
comes. He ought to be here in five minutes. I'll
get your plaid shawl, you are shivering now, dear,’’ he
added kindly; “I'll light the big lantern,” he added,
“and we will stop papa before he turns up the
avenue.”

In two minutes Dick was back with Ellie’s shawl
which he folded round her with boyish tenderness;
they soon heard the sound of wheels; a moment
later the buggy came up the hill.

Papa knew something was amiss when he saw Dick
swinging the lantern. The story was soon told; Ellie
and Dick got into the roomy carriage and Don
Fulano’s head was turned the other way.

“Can we drive through on the wood road, Ellie?”

_asked papa; “I haven’t been there this season.”

“Yes, papa, from this side; for the Crosbys

199

have been cutting wood. I met their team to-day.”

It was almost as dark in the glade as in the thicket
by the time they reached the old tree bole where Ellie
had lost herself and her dear little sister. There
lay the brown volumes and the red afghan and the
heap of bright leaves and the pile of acorns the child
had gathered.

Papa and Dick searched every square inch of the
glade for any traces of footprints or anything that
might have dropped from May’s hands. She had
evidently taken Blondette with her.

“ Yes,” said Ellie, “ she was dancing with Blondette
when I saw her last, in the square of sunshine, and
she had a wreath of blackberry vine and some tinsel
that Nettie gave her. She said she was playing
Flower-dance like the Viennese children mamma told
us about, and I wouldn’t dance with her—oh! oh!”

“Sit down, Ellie, just where you sat then, and tell
me where the sunshine square Jay as nearly as you
can recall it.”

“Just where you are now, papa.”

Mr. Adams swung the lantern in every direction.

Suddenly Dick exclaimed, “'There’s a piece of tin-
sel on a bush over the wall! Swing the lantern again,
papa. I know it was the silver stuff, it glittered so.”

Again the light of the lantern shone into the shad-
owy thicket.

“ Steady now, papa!
see!”

Over the watl went Dick and returned waving the
blackberry spray with the bright tinsel hanging from
it. “She has been over there, that is certain.”

It was a clue to direction at all events, and as they
followed every possible opening in the underbrush
they came to another trifle that gave unspeakable
comfort; it was only a shred of red worsted, but it
was a bit from a pretty knit cape which May wore,
and proved conclusively that she had turned to the
left away from the quarry pools, into whose dark
depths she might have so easily fallen.

“Papa, she followed the sunset! Don’t you see it
would shine through the trees on this side, but not on
that?”

It was no easy task for a man to go where a child
slipped through easily enough, but Dick plunged into
every opening and peered behind every tree, and in
the shadow of every rock, while papa swung the lan-
tern and called and shouted.

At last they came to a place where the slope was
quite abrupt and slippery with pine needles. The

There, just so, while I go and