Late though it was, Elfie was still sleepy and looked in the bright daylight so worn and hollow-eyed that Marion longed to wake her, the sleep seemed so death-like. She was very much puzzled about what to do next. Sending a telegram to Mrs. Abbott was naturally of the first importance, but she would not leave Elfie long enough to do it. True, she might lock her in the room while she ran out to send a dispatch, but in that time the child might wake and cry out and be discovered at once. She thought Madame Belotti’s party had gone, but possibly some order had been left to send her the missing child when found, or one of the women might be waiting in the neighborhood.

A loud knocking at the door startled her out of her perplexed musings.

“Who is it?” she asked, going close to the door, but not unlocking it.

“Is there anny wan at all in the room?” was the answer. “Yes, I am here.”

“Well, it’d take more sinse than there is in mesilf to know who ‘Oi’ is. It is mebby the young leddy the dark tould us took board here from yisterday till the day, and has never come to the dining-room yit for a drink nor a crumb?”

“Yes, that’s me,” said Marion, thinking hard over an idea that had suggested itself to her, and which she decided to follow if the owner of the voice that was answering her looked trustworthy. She opened the door enough then to get a peep at a big, good-natured Irish woman with the fine, fresh coloring and innocent, unsophisticated look that is only worn by the newest importations from the “swatest gim o’ the say.” One look at the pleasant, honest face determined her.

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked very softly, fearing terribly that the sound of her voice might rouse Elfie into a wild outcry.

“That will Oi, indade that will Oi,” was the quick response, made more cheerful, perhaps, by seeing a half-dollar held out in Marion’s fingers. “Is it breakfast ye’ll be wanting brought up till yer room?”

“Yes, I do wish you’d bring me up some breakfast,” said Marion, thinking more of Elfie than herself, “and a glass of milk with it, for I don’t want to go to the dining-room. But that was not the favor I meant; I want you to go over to the restaurant across the street for me and tell Mrs. Jones that the little girl who mended stockings for her yesterday afternoon is not well, and if she will come over here for a few minutes; and please bring her right up to this room. After that you may bring me up the breakfast, please.”

“Really, it is true, I am not well,” said Marion to herself, in excuse for the plea upon which she had summoned Mrs. Jones, who, in about five minutes, came lumbering up the stairs, quite out of breath with their steepness.

Her fat, honest face looked full of sympathy as she came in the room, escorted by the maid, who shut the door and left them together.

“I hope you aint sickening down for scarlet fever or dipthery, or any of those dangerous things, an’ you so far off from home,” said she, looking anxiously at Marion’s flushed face and heavy eyes.

“No, no, Mrs. Jones; there is nothing the matter with me but fatigue and worry; but you are lovely to come, and I will never forget your kindness. I am in great trouble and must have help from somebody.” Then good Mrs. Jones, instead of shrinking away with the feeling strangers often have that a young person all alone in a strange place had probably brought her trouble, whatever it was upon herself and therefore deserved it, took her on her lap as she sat in the straight-backed little rocking-chair, and, smoothing back her curly hair, murmured:

“There, there, poor little thing!” as if she had been a tired baby. “Tell me all about it, dearie, and pa and me between us can likely help you out some way.”

Marion could not doubt her, so as rapidly as she could she told her how she had followed Elfie and now had rescued her from the people who had undoubtedly been hired to steal her by those who had an interest in getting possession of her.

“And now,” said Mrs. Jones, who had constantly interrupted the story with exclamations, questions, and conjectures, “you had better bring the little dear right over to my place.”

“No, no, Mrs. Jones; I dare not do that. I cannot let any one see Elfie or know that I have her here till I can get Mrs. Abbott. Madame Belotti or some of those people may be hiding and watching, and if they saw Elfie and claimed her how could I prove that I had a right to keep her from them?”

“My gracious! Aint she got a wise old head on her young shoulders?” said Mrs. Jones, shaking her own head at the bowl and pitcher on the washstand as if they were, like herself, lost in admiration of such youthful sagacity.

“What I hope you will do for me, Mrs. Jones, is to go and telegraph to Mrs. Abbott.”

“Of course I will; what shall I say?”

“I’ve pricked the message all down with a pin on the inside of an envelope I had in my pocket; I had no pencil. I will read it to you, but if you forget you can make it out again from this, I know; or if you will lay this on a clean sheet of paper and rub dry bluing on it it will mark down the words plainly. I have often done embroidery patterns that way at school.”

Mrs. Jones gave another admiring shake of her head toward the washbowl and pitcher, and rose to go on her errand, promising to come back directly.

“Coventry School: Elfie is with me. Come at once to the Secor House, Troy, N. Y.

“M. A. Stubbs.”

So ran the dispatch which Marion had pricked upon the paper after a fashion she had learned from the girls at school for copying and transferring braiding patterns.

Sally, the good-natured maid, came to the door then with a tray of breakfast which Marion put on the table and partook of very sparingly, reserving the best for Elfie, who still slept on, although it was almost twelve o’clock.

There were three little taps with a finger-nail on the door in about half an hour, and Marion, recognizing the signal agreed upon, let in Mrs. Jones, who had sent off the dispatch, and as the result of talking over the matter with “pa,” to whom some explanation of her visit to the hotel had to be made, had thought of a new cause for anxiety, which was a possibility that Elfie’s long sleep might be the effect of an overdose of the quieting drops.

“And pa,” said Mrs. Jones, “advises waking of her up directly, and, if it can’t be done, getting in a doctor to see her.”

Frightful fears suggested themselves to Marion as Mrs. Jones gave “pa’s” impressive advice, and she turned Elfie’s face toward her and gently tried to awaken her; it was not an easy thing to do, but at last the heavy lids were lifted, and, with a little fretful cry Marion had never heard from her till the night before, she had lifted her head up and looked around.

“Marion is with you; look, look, dear, it is your own Marion. Can’t you see me? Don’t you know me?”

The child looked up at her sleepily a moment with neither wonder nor recognition in her eyes, and then laid her head on the pillow and slept again.