That evening as the three girls sat in front of the wide hearth on which a mesquite root was cheerily burning, they talked quietly together of all that had happened. “Have you heard lately from your brother, Peyton?” Margaret asked. Babs shook her head and there were sudden tears in her pretty blue eyes as she replied, “Oh, girls, I try to forget my great disappointment, but of course I must tell you about it. The cards that were sent to me from China, bearing only the initials P. W., were not from my darling brother after all. I had actually forgotten that I had an acquaintance with those same initials. Who do you suppose Megsy, that the cards were from?” “Patty Warren, perhaps,” Margaret surmised. “Long ago I thought of her, merely because of the initials, but I supposed that she was still in school with you. Had she gone to China?” “It would seem so,” Barbara replied. “I did know that Patty had left school because her widowed mother had married a minister to some outlandish foreign country, but, though the child was very fond of me, I never thought much about her, partly, because she was younger, and also, because I had you and Betsy Clossen for pals and two intimate friends are as many as I care for, but last week I had a letter from her postmarked London asking me if I had received the truly lovely Chinese kimona that she had sent for my birthday and giving me for the first time, a return address. Of course, I wrote her at once to express my appreciation, but I was heart broken. I cried for hours and hours that night, for I had been so sure that my dear lost brother was keeping in touch with me and somehow, even that little had been a comfort to me. Now, I am convinced that Peyton must be dead. He was so loving and tender-hearted even when he was a little fellow; he wouldn’t let month after month pass if he were alive without assuring me that he still cares for me and that all is well with him.” “Poor Babs,” Virg said as she reached out, with real sympathy, and placed a comforting hand over the petite one of their friend. “I know how my heart would ache if Malcolm were lost, but don’t give up hope, dear. Such strange things happen in this world.” “I am going to keep on hoping,” Barbara assured them. Then she added, “I have no way of knowing, of course, but I do believe that the object of my father’s visit to the West is to try to find Peyton. You see, when the epidemic broke out in school, we packed and left that very day, all of us who had not been exposed, and when I reached home father was not expecting me. I quietly entered the house and stood in the open library door. There he was, pacing up and down, an expression of grave anxiety on his face. I knew at once that he was greatly troubled about something, and for the first time since mother died there was a rush of tenderness in my heart for him. He looked so gray and sad and so all alone.