The young lady, as I have intimated, was not averse to the task, all the rather that it promised some difficulty. All the rather, too, that she was stimulated by the idea of counter influence. She recalled more than once what Pitt had said of that 'young girl,' and tried to make out what had been in his tone at the time. No passion certainly; he had spoken easily and frankly; too easily to favour the supposition of any very deep feeling; and yet, not without a certain cadence of tenderness, and undoubtedly with the confidence of intimate knowledge. Undoubtedly, also, the influence of that young person, whatever its nature, had not died out. Miss Betty had little question in her own mind that she must have been one of the persons referred to and dreaded by Mrs. Dallas as dissenters; and the young lady determined to do what she could in the case. She had a definite point of resistance now, and felt stronger for the fray. The fray, however, could not be immediately entered upon. Pitt departed to New York, avowedly to look up the Gainsboroughs. And there, as two years before, he spent unwearied pains in pursuit of his object; also, as then, in vain. He returned after more than a week of absence, a baffled man. His arrival was just in time to allow him to sit down to dinner with the family; so that Betty heard his report. 'Have you found the Gainsboroughs?' his father asked. 'No, sir.' 'Where did you look?' 'Everywhere.' 'What have you done?' his mother asked. 'Everything.' 'I told you, I thought they were gone back to England.' 'If they are, there is no sign of it, and I do not believe it. I have spent hours and hours at the shipping offices, looking over the lists of passengers; and of one thing I am certain, they have not sailed from that port this year.' 'Not under the name by which you know them.' 'And not under any other. Colonel Gainsborough was not a man to hide his head under an alias. But they know nothing of any Colonel Gainsborough at the post office.' 'That is strange.' 'They never had many letters, you know, sir; and the colonel had given up his English paper. I think I know all the people that take the London _Times_ in New York; and he is not one of them.' 'He is gone home,' said Mr. Dallas comfortably. 'I can find that out when I go back to England; and I will.'