Besides Alberta and Britomarte, a third subject of anxiety troubled the young girl; for three days she had not visited the hospitals. On Tuesday she had waited at home all day long to take leave of her brother before his departure for the front. On Wednesday she had stopped to see her guests, Major Fielding and Lieutenant Ethel, off to their respective posts of duty; and to-day she was detained by the necessity of watching over her distracted visitor. In truth, the minister’s orphan daughter had enough upon her hands just now. Another hour passed, and Erminie began to grow uneasy, and Elfie impatient, and Frederica rather cross. Again Erminie stole up to the room and peeped through the door. No change since she was there last. Curtains drawn, room cool, shady and quiet. She returned to the library and said, “We will wait a little longer. I do not like to wake her up, or to eat dinner without her.” And so, to the disgust of Elfie, the annoyance of Catherine and the indignation of Frederica, the dinner was still kept back. “There,” said Elfie, “she has been sleeping six hours now! The clock has struck seven. She ought to be waked up for her own sake.” “I will go and look at her. If she is still sleeping quietly, I will not wake her, but I will have the dinner served at once. If however she is awake and feeling well, I will get her up and help her to dress.” So once again Erminie went up stairs and entered her chamber. All shady, cool and quiet as before. She stole to the bedside and drew the curtains. The bed was empty. “She has got up and gone to the bath-room. She was always a duck in her love of laving in water,” thought Erminie, feeling no sort of uneasiness at her guest’s absence from the chamber. But to assure herself of the truth of her own surmise, she went to see if the bath-room door was shut. She found the door wide open and the room empty. Perplexed and anxious, she made a hasty tour through all the rooms on that floor, then ran up to the story above and searched the rooms there, then up into the attic and searched that. “I know she is deranged, and she may be lurking somewhere about the house with a fit upon her,” said Erminie, as she hurried from place to place in her vain quest. But the guerrilla’s wife was nowhere to be found. “It cannot be that she is in any of the rooms below. Some of us must have seen her,” reflected Erminie, as she ran down the three flights of stairs to the first floor. “Well, has Alberta finished her Rip Van Winkle sleep yet?” inquired Elfie. “Yes; but I cannot find her. I have looked in her room and in all the other rooms above and she is nowhere to be seen in any of them. I think she must have come down here.” “Of course she must if she isn’t up stairs; but I haven’t seen or heard anything of her. I will go and hunt her up, while you order the dinner put on the table. I am as hungry as an unhurt hero after a fight,” said Elfie, dancing out of the room in search of the guest.