It was only a worried moment before Billy came home to say that Alice
had not been there that morning! It was not like Alice to be long away
from home. Mrs. Lee, hiding her concern, directed the children to scour
the neighborhood.

Not until they had come back from the club and beach and neighboring
houses and reported no sign of her did the mother and father openly
express alarm. The children saw a look come into their mother's face
that it had never worn before! Like a shock its agony pierced into each
child's heart! Very white, Billy rushed off to enlist the services of
his boy friends for a thorough search of the beach. Barbara, with her
father, started in the motor for Middletown. "I will stay here near the
telephone," Mrs. Lee had said in answer to her husband's quick,
concerned look.

Peggy came running down the stairs.

"Her bathing suit is gone, Mammy, and her pink apron--"

"And her penny bank is broken!" Keineth held out in her hands the
pieces of the china pig which had held Alice's collection of pennies.
"It's all broken!" and, miserably, Keineth looked down at the
fragments.

"We will find her," said Mrs. Lee, bravely, putting an arm about each
child. "You girlies must stay with me and help me."

From Middletown Mr. Lee telephoned that they had found a clue. A child
answering Alice's description had stopped at a small candy store and