dinner and Alice was found to be missing. It was evident that it was
not an accidental detention, for her trunk had been sent for an hour
previous, and the messenger either could not or would not give any
information as to her whereabouts. Mrs. Monroe was excessively
agitated,--her faculties lost in a maze, like one beholding an accident
without power of thought or motion. To Walter it was a heavy blow; he
feared that his own advances had been the occasion of her leaving the
house, and he reproached himself bitterly for his headlong folly. Their
dinner was a sad and cheerless meal; the mother feeling all a woman's
solicitude for a friendless girl; the son filled with a tumult of
sorrow, remorse, love, and pity.

"Poor Alice!" said Mrs. Monroe; "perhaps she has found no home."

"Don't, mother! The thought of her in the streets, or among suspicious
strangers, or vulgar people, is dreadful. We must leave no means untried
to find her. Did she leave no word, no note?"

"No,--none that I know of."

"Have you looked?"

She shook her head. Walter left his untasted food, and hastily looked in
the hall, then in the parlor, and at last in the library. There was the
note in her own delicate hand.

"DEAR WALTER,--

"Don't be offended. I cannot eat the bread of idleness now that your
fortune is gone and your salary stopped. If I need your assistance, you