for by the servants, who were glad enough to have their young masters away and suspicion attaching to themselves at last removed. But still that watch of Joy's and certain valuables of Aunt Lawrence's remained unaccounted for. Still the police were baffled. Still there came no news as to Snipe's whereabouts, and his mother, deeply distressed, had gone home to Rhinebeck and had to be content with receiving once a month a few lines saying her boy was well, working, and would return to her one of these days when he had earned enough to make him independent. Those letters bore only the date, which often differed by three days from that of the post-mark, but the post-mark helped them not at all. One letter was posted in New York, another in Boston, a third in Philadelphia. It was evident that Snipe was determined to give his step-father no further chance to find him. Once he wrote to Shorty, upbraiding him gently for being instrumental in putting "old Park" on his track, but that was all. Shorty felt it keenly, but with that poor mother and the Doctor and his home people all importuning him and telling him what was his duty, the boy had weakened and given the clue, with the result that they had gained nothing and he had lost his friend. There was little comfort in the assertions of the one whom he referred to as his "Sunday-school aunt," that he ought to be thankful to be rid of so undutiful and undesirable a companion. Shorty, to use the vernacular of the day, "couldn't see it," and fell from grace for saying so. But now the thrilling days of suspense were on the nation, and, while everybody who knew the South knew well the South meant fight, the baa lambs of the pulpit and the braying leaders of the press kept on preaching about the ties of brotherly love, the right of the people to assemble peaceably ("even when under arms"), and the wrong of interference or intimidation, so "Let the erring sisters go in peace." As late as the 8th of April, one night when the boys were drilling in the big gymnasium on the upper floor of Mulholland's school, and quite a number of people were looking on, a venerable patron of the school stepped forward during the rest and proceeded to address them. "Cease all this waste of time, boys. Put away your cruel weapons. Abandon this senseless strutting and marching. War is a relic of the dark ages,--of barbarism. The world has grown wise with years, and of the enlightened nations of the earth America stands foremost. Trust to the broad views of our statesmen and the good sense of the people. They will ever stand between us and the horrors of a civil war."