me with the news that her husband had disappeared."

"Was he drowned?" asked Twaddles fearfully.

"No, no one thought so," answered Father Blossom. "Mrs. Harley
said that he had been acting queerly all that Winter--that he
would go for days without speaking, and then fly into a rage if
any one asked him a question." "He was always so good to his
family," said Mother Blossom, smoothing Meg's hair absently. "He
must have been out of his mind, Ralph."

"I think so myself," agreed Father Blossom. "Anyway, Mrs. Harley
told me that one morning, a wet, cold day in March, he got up
before it was light, lit a fire in the kitchen stove and went out
of the house. They never saw him again. He had a rowboat and this
they found abandoned on the south shore of Sunset Lake, showing
that he must have rowed over to the mainland.

"The next summer, when I went to Apple Tree Island, I was told
that Mrs. Harley and the children had also disappeared," continued
Father Blossom. "She had gone, leaving no trace, and taking the
two little boys with her. I went to see the shack and she had left
it as neat as wax inside and not one scrap of paper anywhere to
give a clue as to what she intended to do."

"Polly saw her after that," Mother Blossom reminded him.

"Yes, that's so, she did," agreed Father Blossom. "She stopped
there one afternoon and Aunt Polly tried to keep her over night;
but she was anxious to begin her journey and would not even stay