gave a little choked cry, and her face grew so white that Billie ran to her, fearing she hardly knew what. But she had no need to worry, for although fear sometimes kills, joy never does, and in a minute Miss Arbuckle’s eager hands were clutching the volume, her fingers trembling as they rapidly turned over the leaves.

   “Yes, here they are, here they are,” she cried suddenly, and Billie, peeping over her shoulder, looked down at the pictured faces of three of the most beautiful children she had ever seen. “My darlings, my darlings,” Miss Arbuckle was saying over and over again. Then suddenly her head dropped to the open page and her shoulders shook with the sobs that tore themselves from her.

   Billie turned away and tiptoed across the room, her own eyes wet, but she stopped with her hand on the door.

   “My little children!” Miss Arbuckle cried out sobbingly. “My precious little babies! I couldn’t lose your pictures after losing you. They were all I had left of you, and I couldn’t lose them, I couldn’t—I couldn’t——”

   Billie opened the door, and, stepping out into the hall, closed it softly after her. She brushed her hand across her eyes, for there were tears in them, and her feet felt shaky as she started up the stairs.

   “Well, I—I never!” she told herself unsteadily. “First she nearly scares me to death. And then she cries and talks about her children, and says she’s lost them. Goodness, I shouldn’t wonder but that Laura is right after all. There certainly is something mighty strange about it.”

   And when, a few minutes later, she told the story to her chums they agreed with her, even Vi.

   “Why, I never heard of such a thing,” said the latter, looking interested. “You say she seemed frightened when you went in, Billie?”

   “Terribly,” answered Billie. “It seemed as if she might faint or something.”

   “And the children,” Laura mused delightedly aloud. “I’m going to find out who those children are and why they are lost if I die doing it.”

   “Now look who she thinks she is,” jeered Vi.

   “Who?” asked Laura with interest.

   “The Great Lady Detective,” said Vi, and Laura’s chest, if one takes Billie’s word for it, swelled to about three times its natural size.

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