"Precious," she cried, looking around, but there was no answer. Precious had disappeared. "She is hiding, to tease me," smiled Mrs. Winans, and began to search for her daughter with a smile on her lips. But Precious was nowhere to be seen, and she presently grew quite alarmed. "She will be lost in this dense crowd. It was very thoughtless in her to leave my side. I must find her father and send him to search for her," cried the frightened mother. But for some time she could not see her husband, or any one else that she knew. Suddenly she came upon Ethel and Lord Chester sitting close to a vine-wreathed pillar, seemingly absorbed in each other. The handsome young nobleman was leaning over Ethel with an air of devotion that seemed only the due of her dark and sparkling beauty. Mrs. Winans gave a little suppressed sob of joy at finding some one that she knew. She went up to the lovers, and cried tremulously: "Oh, Ethel, have you seen Precious? She is lost!" Ethel looked up with a frown at the interruption of her charming conversation, and answered coldly: "No, mamma; I thought she was with you." "She was, but a little while ago Baron Nugent stopped to speak to me, and when I looked around again Precious had disappeared as completely as if she had sunk through the floor. She must have strayed into the crowd, the thoughtless child, and got lost. Oh, if I could find her father and send him to look for her!" "I will be very glad to bring him to you, madam," exclaimed Lord Chester, courteously and he hurried away to seek the senator. Ethel pouted angrily. "If you had only stayed where you were, mamma, Precious would have come back to you directly. You are making a great fuss over nothing," she declared, and Mrs. Winans trembled at the jealous flash in the large dark eyes. "My dear, I am very sorry I interrupted you," she said, in her low, gentle voice. "But I was so alarmed over Precious I did not think. Forgive me." "There is nothing to forgive, but it is just like Precious, raising an excitement, and spoiling every one's pleasure. She should never have come," Ethel replied ungraciously. At that moment Lord Chester came hurrying back with Senator Winans in tow. "Oh, Paul, I have lost Precious," his wife cried with a choking sob. "No, dear, we will find her presently, I'm sure," he said cheerfully, but with an anxious light in his eyes. Then he explained that while she was talking to the baron he had beckoned Precious away in order to present her to a friend of his, a cabinet minister. While they were all talking they had spied the president leaving, and bidding Precious remain where she was until he came back her father hurried forward for a few good-night words with him. "I am sure I was not absent more than fifteen minutes from her side, but when I returned she was gone. I supposed she had made her way back to you, and was searching for you both when I met Lord Chester."