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She was holding out her arms for her coat when this took place, and she went cold all over. But she did not move, and Minnie buttoned her in snugly, and tied the ribbons of her hat with cold, hard knuckles, without suspecting anything.

Then Alanna disappeared and Mrs. Costello sent the maids and babies on without her. It was getting dark and cold for the small Costellos.

But the hour was darker and colder for Alanna. She searched and she hoped and she prayed in vain. She stood up, after a long hands-and-knees expedition under the tables where she had been earlier, and pressed her right hand over her eyes, and said aloud in her misery, “Oh, I CAN’T have lost it! I CAN’T have. Oh, don’t let me have lost it!”

She went here and there as if propelled by some mechanical force, a wretched, restless little figure. And when the dreadful moment came when she must give up searching, she crept in beside her mother in the carriage, and longed only for some honorable death.

When they all went back at eight o’clock, she recommenced her search feverishly, with that cruel alternation of hope and despair and weariness that every one knows. The crowds, the lights, the music, the laughter, and the noise, and the pervading odor of pop-corn were not real, when a shabby, brown little book was her whole world, and she could not find it.

“The drawing will begin,” said Alanna, “and the Bishop will call out the number! And what’ll I say? Every one will look at me; and HOW can I say I’ve lost it! Oh, what a baby they’ll call me!”

“Father’ll pay the money back,” she said, in sudden relief. But the impossibility of that swiftly occurred to her, and she began hunting again with fresh terror.

“But he can’t! How can he? Two hundred names; and I don’t know them, or half of them.”

Then she felt the tears coming, and she crept in under some benches, and cried.

She lay there a long time, listening to the curious hum and buzz above her. And at last it occurred to her to go to the Bishop, and tell this old, kind friend the truth.

But she was too late. As she got to her feet, she heard her own name called from the platform, in the Bishop’s voice.

“Where’s Alanna Costello? Ask her who has number eighty-three on the desk. Eighty-three wins the desk! Find little Alanna Costello!”

Alanna had no time for thought. Only one course of action occurred to her. She cleared her throat.

“Mrs. Will Church has that number, Bishop,” she said.

The crowd about her gave way, and the Bishop saw her, rosy, embarrassed, and breathless.

“Ah, there you are!” said the Bishop. “Who has it?”

“Mrs. Church, your Grace,” said Alanna, calmly this time.

“Well, did you EVER,” said Mrs. Costello to the Bishop. She had gone up to claim a mirror she had won, a mirror with a gold frame, and lilacs and roses painted lavishly on its surface.

“Gee, I bet Alanna was pleased about the desk!” said Dan in the carriage.

“Mrs. Church nearly cried,” Teresa said. “But where’d Alanna go to? I couldn’t find her until just a few minutes ago, and then she was so queer!”

“It’s my opinion she was dead tired,” said her mother. “Look how sound she’s asleep! Carry her up, Frank. I’ll keep her in bed in the morning.”

They kept Alanna in bed for many mornings, for her secret weighed on her soul, and she failed suddenly in color, strength, and appetite. She grew weak and nervous, and one afternoon, when the Bishop came to see her, worked herself into such a frenzy that Mrs. Costello wonderingly consented to her entreaty that he should not come up.

She would not see Mrs. Church, nor go to see the desk in its new house, nor speak of the fair in any way. But she did ask her mother who swept out the hall after the fair.