pretend to imagine, as he thought of the roundabout ramble he had taken. He got up early the next morning, and carefully hunted over every step of the ground, but all in vain. It would have been well if he had gone at once to his mother, and confessed what he had done; but he delayed, still cherishing a hope of finding what he had lost, and the longer he waited, the more impossible it became to tell. He remembered that a boy had once said to him, "A sneak is sure to be a coward."

More than a week after this, Peter was sitting on the piazza one evening after tea, reading to his mother, when his friend of the creek expedition came in.

"Here is a card I found, addressed to you, Mrs. Keens," he said. "It must be the one you were hunting for last week, Pete."

She took it in some surprise, failing to observe the color which mounted to Peter's face as he saw it. As she read it, a troubled expression overspread her own.

"Ten days old, this card," she exclaimed. "'Wednesday, the 14th'—what does it mean, Peter?" She passed it to him, and he read as follows:

"July 3.

"My dear Ruth,—I write to give you ample notice of a change in our plans in consequence of Robert's partner desiring to take a trip late in the season, obliging us to go early. So Robert, having finished his business in Canada, is to meet us on Wednesday, the 14th, at Plattsburg. Shall stop for Peter on the evening of the 13th. Please have him ready.

"Katherine."

This was the 13th. Peter stared at his mother in dismay.

"I do not quite understand yet," she said. "Where did you get this card, Philip?"

"I found it just now in the arbor where I have my museum; it had slipped behind a box. You lost it the day we played there, didn't you, Pete?"

"How came you to have it there, Peter?"

"I—it was in my pocket, ma'am, and I dropped it, I suppose."

"Why was it in your pocket? Why didn't you bring it to me?"

"I wanted—I was just going to read it."

Phil touched his hat, and quietly took his departure. Mrs. Keens said no more, but looked again at the dates on the card.

At this moment a hack drove up, from which issued a most astonishing outpouring of noisy, laughing, chattering blue-flannelled boys, followed by a mother who looked just merry enough to be commander of such a merry crew.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Pete, we're off! All ready? We can only stay two hours."

"Such a tent—big, striped, and a flag to it; and—"

"Father's going to let us boys shoot with a gun."

"Isn't it jolly to have two weeks less to wait?"

Peter did not look at all jolly, as through his half-bewildered mind struggled a dim perception of the dire evil the loss of that card might have worked for him. When the clamor of greeting and questioning had somewhat subsided, Mrs. Keens said, slowly:

"No, Peter is not ready;" and the tone of her voice sent a heavier weight down into his heart, and a bigger lump into his throat. "Your card has only just reached me, Katherine."

"Oh dear! dear!" His aunt shook her head in distress, and five boy faces settled into blank dismay. "Why, why, surely you don't mean, Ruth—eh? Can't you hurry things up a little? Boys don't need much, you know! Or—can't he be sent after us?" Peter followed his mother to the dining-room as she went to order a hasty lunch for the travellers.

"Mother, can't I?—can't I?" he sobbed.

She put her arms around him, with streaming eyes, feeling the keenness of the disappointment for him as deeply as he ever could feel it for himself.

"Oh, my boy! my boy! my heart is sad and sore that you should be mean and sly and deceitful, and not for once only, but as a habit. No, it is your own doing, and you must abide by the consequences. I never could have brought myself to punish you so, but you have punished yourself, and I trust it may be the best thing which could have happened to you."