"I have not seen her since breakfast.--Suppose you look her up, Floyd? I am afraid she is with Miss Georgy, and in mischief, no doubt.--I object, sir," Mr. Floyd added to his father-in-law, "to Helen's having too much of the society of Miss Lenox. She is a pretty little devil enough, but then I don't like pretty little devils." "I have written to Mrs. Lenox to recall her," returned Mr. Raymond stiffly. "She is no favorite of mine. There is a look in her eyes at times that makes me shudder at the thought of the harm she is pretty sure to do. Floyd here is her only partisan." I had already sprung along the terrace, and quickly crossed the lawn and garden to the rocks. I remembered having seen a blue and a scarlet jacket going toward the shore during my talk with Mr. Floyd; and, sure enough, on the rocks I found traces of the girls--a ribbon, the rind of Georgy's oranges which she was always nibbling, and Helen's book. Supposing they were on the beach, I descended the stone steps leading to the sands. There was a faint plashing and lisping of the waves, but otherwise no sound and no sight but the great rocks and the smooth sea lustrous and glittering like steel. I had no doubt but that Helen and Georgy were somewhere near me, and sat down to wait. My mind was full of thoughts that came and went, bringing clear but swiftly-shifting pictures of our old life and the new, which rose suddenly fresh and vivid before me. I could see my mother's face, the color coming and going like a young girl's, and the movement of her little hands clasping and unclasping in her lap. I could see her, too, by the side of Mr. Floyd in a bright, wonderful world of which I knew nothing. For a moment I felt already parted from her, and the pang of separation wrenched body from soul. I threw myself face downward on the sand and declared myself profoundly miserable. Suddenly I started to my feet. I was vaguely terrified, yet could not tell what had aroused me from my brooding thoughts. I seemed conscious of having heard a cry, but so faint and inarticulate as hardly to differ from the distant note of a sea-bird. But as I ran frantically along the sands I distinctly heard my name, and knew that the entreaty was for help.