"I think she is an unscrupulous, wicked woman, and that is bad enough," replied Miss Druett. "I don't like to have you lose one of your few pleasures, but I must say I don't fancy your meeting her. How bright you look!" "I feel bright; I feel as if I were in a new world. Oh, Miss Druett, if you would only find him too! Why won't you try?" "There, don't talk about it, child," replied Miss Druett, hastily; "pray that he may find me, and perhaps he will. Come, it is time to go down." Calista walked somewhat more slowly than usual this morning, and reached the school-room just as the first bell rung. She went directly to her desk and looked into it, half hoping to see the missing needle-case, which she disliked losing, both for its own sake and because she knew the trouble the loss would occasion at home. It was not there, however, and her desk was exactly as she left it. "It is very strange," thought Calista; "anyway, I am sure Mary did not take it." Mary Burns and Antoinette Diaments were the last to enter—the latter in her riding-dress, which she had had no time to change. She had hoped to reach school in time to restore the case to its place, but in this she was disappointed; and as she looked at its beauty, she could hardly make up her mind to return it at all. "Calista is so giddy, Miss McPherson will think she lost it herself; and so will Miss Meeks, if I can only get held of her first." Mary Burns looked tired and worn with grief and watching, as, indeed, she was; but her face, in all its sorrowful paleness, had a steadfast, settled expression. She knew in whom she had put her trust, and she did not believe he would desert her in the hour of need, however he might suffer her to be tried. For this poor, plain, stammering tailor's daughter had a faith which nothing could shake. She would have faced all the sophistry of all the infidels in the world with the simple unanswerable argument of St. John: "WE have SEEN him." It was the custom on Monday morning for each person in the school-room, beginning with Miss McPherson herself, to recite a verse from Holy Scripture. The verses this morning were unusually significant to those who were in the secrets of the past few days. Miss McPherson's was from the thirty-second Psalm and fifth verse: "'I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.'" Miss Jessy's (with a beseeching glance at poor Mary) was: "'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'" (1 John 1:9.) Miss Meeks (sharply, and with a glance in the same direction): "'Be sure your sin will find you out.'" (Numbers 32:23.) It was Mary Burns's turn next, and she spoke up clearly, and with a bright light in her usually pale blue eyes. "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday." (Ps. 37:6.)