_The Times_ is an excellent paper; it does not make a feature of "dreadful tragedies"; but, unless one is acquainted with its methods, it is not a paper in which one can put one's finger on any particular item of news after an instant's search--even with the aid of the index. So far as Miss Vernon was concerned, it never occurred to her to glance at the "Contents of this Day's Paper"; and, possibly, she would have been little benefited if she had. She turned over page after page, advertisements and all, and went up and down column after column, without seeing anything about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster; as a result, she jumped at some very hasty, and very unfair, conclusions on the subject of the value of _The Times_. "Silly old paper! I've heard lots of people say there never is anything in it--and there isn't!" However, so anxious was she to find what she sought, that she travelled up and down the columns a second time; and, before she had got to the end, was forced to admit that there did seem to be something in _The Times_; even though there might be nothing which would throw light on the subject she had at heart. "I wonder what paper he saw it in?" The reference was to the youth, Denman. "He said 'papers'; and as Mrs Purchas saw it too, whatever it was, I suppose it was in more than one; but there doesn't seem to be anything about it here. Silly old paper! I wonder what Mrs Purchas meant by talking about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster--and why Dorothy looked as if she were going to have a fit when she did." Thus wondering, holding the paper in front of her, her eye was caught by something which she had not observed before--"Racing at Newcaster." "Why, of course, that's where the races are. I thought I'd heard the name before;--how stupid I am! But what can Dorothy have had to do----" She stopped, her eye caught by something else--a name in a sentence. "Few men were better known on Newcaster Heath than George Emmett. His tragic fate, on the eve of the meeting at which he had been such a prominent figure for so many years, was the theme of general conversation." Then the writer proceeded to give some facts about George Emmett. Miss Vernon took them in with her eye without at all appreciating their meaning. One fact she did grasp--that the man seemed dead. "George Emmett?--I am sure her guardian's name was Emmett; but Strathmoira told mother that he'd brought her here because her guardian wasn't very well; but this Emmett's dead, according to the paper--it talks about his 'tragic fate'--I wonder in what way his fate was tragic. It can't be the same man; why did Mrs Purchas associate Dorothy with Newcaster?" Miss Vernon's glance passed down the racing columns, to be arrested by a paragraph at the foot.