Despite her midnight vigil, Grace rose before seven o'clock the next morning. On the previous afternoon Jean had stated that he would come early to Mrs. Gray's the following morning to bid them farewell before starting on his search for Tom. Eight o'clock found herself and Elfreda Briggs walking rapidly up Chapel Hill. They found the old hunter had stolen a march on them, however. When they entered the library he was already there, in earnest conversation with Mrs. Gray.

"I hav' wait for you," he said, after bidding them a quaint bon jour. "But now the time grow short. The train, she run at nine o'clock. It is now that we must say the au revoir. Not long an' I see the camp and M'sieu' David. It is good that you hav' telegraph the young man. Ol' Jean will do his best. Le bon Dieu will do the rest." The hunter reverently crossed himself.

"I have a letter for you, Jean, to give to Tom." Grace was wearing her most hopeful face as she gave the cherished letter into the old man's keeping. "When you have found Tom, and I know that you will, tell him that I am waiting for him and give—him—this—letter."

"When You Have Found Tom, Give Him This Letter."

"It shall be of a sacred trust," Jean assured, crossing himself again. "Be of the brav' heart, Mam'selle. For you and M'sieu' Tom the 'appiness is near. Now it is time to go."

Warmly shaking hands with the two for whom he was about to "do his best," Jean turned to Elfreda and offered his hand with: "I am the lucky man to hav' meet such good frien' to Mam'selle Grace."

"Thank you, Jean." Elfreda colored with pleasure at the sincere tribute. "Some day, when Tom Gray has been found and you are back again in Oakdale, we'll pay a visit to your cabin. Then I'll tell you what a splendid friend Grace Harlowe has been to me."

"It shall be as Mam'selle says," responded Jean gallantly. Accompanied as far as the veranda by the three women, Jean made his final adieus and strode down the pebbled drive to the gate, a sturdy, purposeful figure, despite his years. To the three who watched him almost out of sight, the determined set of his broad shoulders in itself seemed to presage the success of his mission.

"It was certainly nice in Jean to say what he did to me about my being your friend," was Elfreda's abrupt comment when, after saying good-bye to Mrs. Gray, the two young women started down Chapel Hill toward home. "It was the highest compliment that he could pay me. If there had been time I'd have liked to tell him a few of the reasons for it. I guess he would have understood then that I had special cause to be loyal to you. I don't mean by that that anybody would have to have special cause to be your friend. One would only have to meet you once, Grace Harlowe, to know that your friendship would be the kind worth having. That is, if one had any sense. That time I plumped myself down in your seat when we were bound for Overton College to begin our freshman year, I was too much wrapped up in myself to know how lucky I was. Isn't it queer, though, how things like that are often the means by which we begin the staunchest friendships?"

"Yes, it is strange. If we hadn't met on the train that day in that way, you might have decided to go to another boarding place instead of taking up with Mrs. Elwood's offer to you to share Miriam's room. Then, very likely, we might never have become well acquainted. There were ever so many girls at Overton College during the six years that I spent there, whom I never came to know really well." Grace looked regretful.

"But they all knew you," was the staunch retort. "You are as much of an institution there now as Harlowe House is. Your name has become a household word at Overton College. Emma and I were speaking of that very thing at the reunion. She said that if she were manager of Harlowe House for the next twenty years she'd never come to be known as well there as you were in the time you spent at Overton."

"Emma is a wily old flatterer and so are you," laughed Grace. "Just because you girls like me you think the whole world ought to fall in line and worship me." Her bantering tone changing to seriousness she continued, "Not that I don't appreciate your affection, and love you with all my heart for it. Neither of you ever stops to think how much credit you both deserve. Sometimes I wonder what I ever did to bring me so many true friends. I never properly realized their worth until this summer. Living in the shadow has taught me a great deal.

"The very fact that all my friends have stood by me so firmly has made me see that I owe it to them to be strong and steadfast through all. It has taught me, too, that I can't afford to be selfish. When Tom first went away I used to think that, if he never came back, there wouldn't be anything worth living for, ever again. But it came to me by degrees that such a viewpoint was utterly selfish; that I had a great deal to live for. Father and Mother, first of all; then Mrs. Gray and my friends. So I made up my mind that if worse came to worst, I would devote myself to them more than ever and thus try to make up for my own loss."

"Of course you would," agreed Elfreda, with a ready tenderness that arose from the emotion that had welled up within her at Grace's unconscious revelation of unselfishness. "No one knows that better than I know it."

"I wonder what the postman has brought us this morning?" Grace had decided that it was high time to lead the talk away from herself. She had spoken to Elfreda with utter frankness of her inner resolve, yet she could not bear to continue longer on the subject. It presented too vividly the possibility of Tom's non-return, and she had schooled herself not to dwell upon such a contingency.

"We'll soon know." They were now within a short distance of the Harlowe's home. "I hope Ma hasn't decided that I ought to go back to law school and written me to that effect," grumbled Elfreda. "Now I am here, I'd like to keep on being here until——" She paused.

"Until we hear good news," finished Grace softly. "I wish you would stay with me as long as you can, Elfreda. When the good news comes, I'd like you to be here to share it."

"Oh, I'll stay," assured Elfreda, "provided I can win Ma over to my views. It will be the same as using my powers of eloquence to convince a doubtful jury that the prisoner is innocent. There is nothing like practice," she reminded, her wide, boyish grin in mischievous evidence.

"Have we a heavy mail this morning, Mother?" was Grace's eager inquiry as she and Elfreda came up the front steps to the veranda. Established in a wide-armed rocking chair, her eyes busy with the reading of her own mail, Mrs. Harlowe looked up smilingly as she said, "Heavy enough to keep you both busy for a while. I didn't count your letters. They are on the library table in the living-room. I sorted them into two piles. Elfreda's was the highest."

"Thank you, dear." Blowing a gay little kiss to her mother, Grace made for the living-room, with Elfreda close behind her.

"I ought to receive a few dozen letters," commented Elfreda. "Nearly every one of my correspondents have been lagging and languishing." Running hastily over the stack of letters bearing her name, she separated one of them from the rest. "Here's the letter from Ma. Now we'll see whether its back to law school for J. Elfreda."

"Oh, here's one from Miriam." Having been equally busy with her own mail, Grace drew up a chair before the table. Slipping into it she soon became absorbed in what Miriam had written her.

Seated opposite her, Elfreda perused the letter from her mother with the anxious eye of one about to receive sentence. In the middle of it she uttered a cluck of satisfaction. "Excuse me for interrupting you, but I just wanted to tell you that Ma is a wingless angel. I don't have to do the convincing act at all. She says I may stay with you until I either wear out my welcome or get ready to come home. Isn't that a glorious message? Hooray!" Elfreda waved her maternal parent's unexpected missive of leniency on high.

"Glorious indeed." Finishing the short but interesting letter from Miriam, Grace shoved it across the table to Elfreda. "Read it," she commanded. "I know Miriam would be willing that you should. As her roommate of long standing you are entitled to special privileges."

"Thank you." Elfreda pounced upon the proffered letter with avidity, while Grace continued with her own correspondence. Counting her letters over, she found she had received nine. As was her usual custom, she had begun with the top one, which was from Miriam, and read them in the order in which they were stacked. Elfreda on the contrary, scattered broadcast on the table the whole ten letters she had received. She picked and chose with the air of a connoisseur, keeping up a running fire of ridiculous remarks between letters, that moved Grace to frequent laughter, but did not distract her attention to any degree from her own affairs. She had become too familiar with Elfreda's always entertaining methods of doing things to be other than amused by them.

The contents of her own mail filled her with a quiet joy. One and all, so far as she had read, her friends breathed undying friendship and deep devotion to herself. There was a long letter from Eleanor Savelli, who was summering in Colorado with her father and aunt. It held the glad tidings that Miss Nevin and herself intended to come to Oakdale for the winter. Her father's concert tour would soon begin. She did not expect to travel with him that winter. She was anxious to come back to "Heartsease" for a long rest. Much in the letter was of a deeply sympathetic nature, relating to Grace's misfortune. She begged Grace to inform her at once should matters take a happier turn and hoped before long to be with her.

There was also a letter from Mabel Allison confiding the news of her engagement to Arnold Evans. She was very happy, she declared. Formal announcement of her betrothal to Arnold had not yet been made, but Grace would soon receive a card to that effect. Mabel Ashe wrote much sympathy, her letter fairly bristling with her lovable, vivid personality. She ended with the jubilant news that she had sold the novel on which she had worked so long and patiently to complete, to a well-known book publishing firm. She had named it, "the Guardian of the Flame." She styled it as "the story of a woman's heart," and her publishers believed it would be very successful.

The Emerson twins sent her a funny little epistle, in which they had taken turns in the writing of its many paragraphs. It had evidently been gotten up with a view to cheering her and she read between the lines the kindliness which had prompted the joint authors to the deed. Jessica and Anne came next with loving letters that proved how completely one they were with her in spirit. A colorful account of the doings of the Harlowe House girls at Overton College as set down by Evelyn Ward brought a smile of pleasure to Grace's face.

One of the two remaining envelopes bore Arline's mark. Grace's smile deepened as she opened it and saw:

Arline devoted further space to affectionate inquiry regarding Grace's troubles and ended with the naÏve announcement:

The last letter on the pile was from Emma Dean. Hastily running over the first page, Grace laughed outright. "Listen to this, Elfreda," she commanded, her eyes dancing.

"I'd love to go." Grace hesitated. "Do you think it would be disloyal in me to leave Oakdale now, even for a day? I thought it over seriously before I went to Miriam's wedding. That was really a duty, you know. But since Jean has taken up Tom's case, it seems as though I am likely to hear something important within a few days."

"You mustn't be too sure," counseled Elfreda wisely. "You might be disappointed. It may take even Jean a long time to find out anything. I'm not saying that to be cruel."

"You don't need to tell me that. I know I mustn't expect too much, even of Jean. Yet I can't help thinking that if he doesn't find Tom, no one else ever will."