The first step to such a flight of literary ambition was evidently to discover the missing friends; until that was settled the whole point of the volume would be lacking and it was useless to attempt even a beginning. She came home one day after the usual morning walk in a state of great excitement, overflowing with news to tell Linda, who, having a bad cold, had been obliged to stay in the house. "What do you think?" she cried, as they stood washing their hands together in the bathroom, "I really believe I have found a clue at last!" "A clue to what?" asked Linda, who had forgotten all about the matter by that time. "Why, to Mercy Ingledew! Miss Coleman took us to Aberglyn this morning and along the promenade, and we sat down for a rest on one of the benches. Connie Camden and I were quite at the end, next to two ladies, and I could hear everything they were talking about. One of them, the tall, fair one, was most dreadfully sad, and said it had left a blank, and the other, the short, fat one, seemed so sorry for her and was trying to comfort her. 'When did you lose her?' she asked. I couldn't hear the answer, because Connie was whispering to me, but the short lady said: 'Dear me! as long ago as that? I am afraid you can have very little hope of ever finding her now.' Then Connie interrupted again, but I caught something about curly hair and such winning ways. 'You believe she has been traced to this neighbourhood?' the fat lady said; 'you are quite sure you would be able to know her from any other?' 'I couldn't mistake,' the tall lady said; 'her eyes alone would tell me even if she had utterly forgotten me!' It was just growing most interesting when Miss Coleman got up and we had to go, but I'm certain we're on the right track and it's Mercy they're looking for. Don't you think it must be?" "I don't know," said Linda doubtfully; "it might be somebody else." "Oh! How could it be? It all exactly fits in with Mercy's story, and the tall, fair lady was in deep mourning too." "She wouldn't still be in mourning," said Linda; "it's fifteen years since Mercy was lost." "She might be; perhaps she made up her mind never to wear anything else until she found her. Shall I tell Mercy?" "No, I'm sure you had better not. Miss Kaye said we were none of us ever to mention it to her." "Then I must find out a little more, and it will come as a surprise to her in the end. Don't breathe a word to any of the other girls; I want it to be a dead secret. Nobody knows a hint about it except you and me." Sylvia felt almost bursting with the importance of her quest; her great anxiety now was to meet the lady again and make a few further discoveries. She wished she knew her name, or where she lived, and much regretted that she had not taken the opportunity of saying something about Mercy at the time.