She was not found at any of the neighbors. She did not come home that night, nor for many another succeeding night. It grew into a most absorbing mystery, the strange disappearance of a young girl from her home. It was not a matter of local interest merely, but of general. From the local papers the item was copied into the papers all the country over. It excited a great interest and sympathy. It became one of the sensations of the day. Search was made far and near. Personals appeared in the newspapers; the largest rewards Mr. Rodney could afford were offered for his daughter’s return. He was half mad with cruel anxiety; he hurried hither and thither in search of the lost one. But, in all his grief and anxiety, in all his suspicions, no warning instinct ever prompted him to look into his neighbor’s house. It was the strangest thing that had ever happened in Chester. In the pretty quiet town no such sensation had ever been heard of before. A young girl locked into her room in the safe sanctuary of home had disappeared in the strangest manner, and not the slightest clew could be found to the mystery. Add to this that the missing girl had been a general favorite, loved for her winning ways, and admired for her beauty, and you may form some idea of how Aline Rodney was missed and mourned. The panic only became greater as days went by, and there came no tidings of her fate. People were frightened. Young girls shivered in their rooms by day and by night. What if a like fate should befall them? Mrs. Rodney’s grief and remorse were extreme. The thin crust of pride and dignity melted around her heart, and she realized that she had been hard and stern to the lost one. She blamed herself as the cause of Aline’s flitting, and her self-reproach was most bitter. When proud, hard natures melt, no one can calculate the effect. Mrs. Rodney’s sorrow and remorse completely prostrated her. She became seriously ill, and her physician declared that there was no telling how her low, nervous fever would end, unless her terrible suspense could be broken by news of her lost daughter. Those were weary days for the Rodneys. Effie was wretched, her mother ill, Mr. Rodney worn to a shadow, and little Max’s grief unceasing. They began to realize what a sunbeam in the house had been the bright-eyed girl whom they had blamed so often. Now, when she was worse than dead to them, mamma and Effie began to realize her worth. Papa and Max had known it all the while. Two weeks had elapsed, and Effie was sitting by the bedside of her sick mother one evening, when a stranger’s card was brought to her. She looked at it in some surprise. “Dr. Anthony,” she read, slowly. “Why, mamma, have you called a new physician?” “No, I have not,” said Mrs. Rodney. “It is a stranger, dear. Go to him quickly, please. Perhaps he brings us news.”