Cynthia painted that morning with a wretched feeling of responsibility. “I could get them a new clock,” she told herself, “but it wouldn’t be the same.” She had chosen a spot down the main road, where two small stone, white-washed houses, overgrown with rambling roses, were as theatrically picturesque as a scene from the Follies. But the sketch was not very satisfactory. “It’s not my kind of thing,” she fretted. “It’s fun to do, but I’d rather paint people. Wonder where my little friend of yesterday is. She must live in one of those houses. ...” A team of oxen plodded slowly down the dusty road, brilliantly golden beneath the shadow of the blue dyed sheepskin that lay atop their heavy yoke, their eyes hidden behind a heavy fringe of bright colored net. Their driver walked ahead, his _makhila_ over his shoulder rested on the yoke to guide the animals. Cynthia listened to the soft jangle of bells till it died in the distance, then decided she was hungry; that was what must be wrong with her sketch, and packed up her materials. The Marges never ate lunch. Cynthia had discovered that a continental breakfast did not sustain one very well from eight A.M. till five in the afternoon, and after two days of semi-starvation had persuaded Madame to give her a cold meal at noon. Today there was sliced duckling and a pleasant salad set on the red checked table cloth beneath the sun spangled arbor. She finished her raspberries, with the thick pat of rich sour cream and the crust of warm bread and idly watched M. Marge talking to someone beyond the beehives. It looked like the old man in the Yturbe household, Thomasina’s grandfather. Cynthia wondered at that, for she knew the two men were not close friends. “I wish I could get that child to paint,” she thought idly, remembering the small eager face of the day before. M. Marge came slowly and alone up the stone flagged walk and sat down on the step beside Cynthia’s luncheon table. “There must be gypsies here,” he stated, “For Thomasina has been stolen.” “Thomasina!” cried Cynthia, aghast. “How perfectly dreadful!” and felt her throat tighten. For a moment she could not speak for fear of bursting into tears. Little Thomasina! “When ... how long?” she asked after a moment. “Perhaps not stolen ... perhaps. ... But she has been gone since early this morning. It is two now. She did not come home for her noon meal. Her grandfather came to ask if we had seen her. She has never gone from the dooryard before, not until yesterday when she came here. Her father thinks she may have strayed down the road and met someone; she was very unhappy over a little thrush they had, which died. She may have been looking for him.” Cynthia knew those little thrushes in their willow cages which hung outside so many French doorways. “They are afraid of the canal, and the mill-pond.”