Well, we had all searched for three days without finding any trace of the two missing girls. Everything wuz ready for our departure, but Dorothy said that she could not, could not go without Aronette, but Robert Strong said and believed that the child was dead. He had come to the belief that she and Lucia by some accident had fallen into the water and wuz drowned. Dorothy had cried herself sick and she looked wan and white, but bein' so sweet dispositioned she give up when we all said that we must go before long, and said that she would go too, though I knew that her heart would remain there wanderin' round in them queer streets huntin' for her lost one. The morning of the third day after they wuz lost I wuz down in the parlor, when a man come in and spoke to Robert Strong, and they both went out together talking earnestly, and I see in Robert's face a look of horrow and surprise that I had never seen in it before; and the first time Robert saw me alone after that he told me the dretful news. He said that the man that spoke to him was a detective he had employed, and the evening before he had come acrost a man who had been out of town since the night Aronette wuz lost. This man told the detective that he saw her and Lucia and the two young men coming out of a saloon late at night, staggering and reeling they all wuz, and they disappeared down a cross street towards another licensed house of ruin. Licensed by Christian America! Oh, my achin' heart to think on't! "I wonder if our govermunt is satisfied now," I broke out, "since it has ruined her, one of the sweetest girls in the world. But how did they ever entice 'em into that saloon?" sez I. "They might have made them think it was respectable, they do serve lunches at some of them; of course they didn't know what kind of a place it was. And after they wuz made stupid drunk they didn't know or care where they went." "I wonder if America is satisfied now!" I sez agin, "reachin' out her long arms clear acrost the Pacific to lead them sweet girls into the pit she has dug for her soldiers? Oh!" sez I, "if she'd only been drownded!" And I wiped my streamin' eyes on my linen handkerchief. And Robert sithed deep and sez, "Yes, if she had only died, and," he sez, "I can't tell Dorothy, I cannot." And I sez, "There is no need on't; better let her think she's dead. How long," sez I, turning toward him fierce in my aspect, "how long is the Lord and decent folks goin' to allow such things to go on?"