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“You are so good,” explained Grace; “and you help me to forget—Joan.”

Patricia rose briskly.

“Well, this wont do,” she declared. “I must do the washing-up. Then I’ll go into town and send another wire.”

“To Jimmy?” asked Grace eagerly.

“Yes. It seems evident that the others have not found him. Third time never like the rest, they say. Buzzy thinks he must be in Napier still———”

“Has Buzzy written?”

“Yes. She hopes you are getting along nicely, and all that———”

“What does she say about Jimmy?”

“Just that somebody she knows caught a glimpse of him last week———”

“Oh———”

“Hush, dear. We will have him home again very shortly—even if I have to go and fetch him myself.”

“They would never let you into the area, Pat.”

“I’d like to meet the man who would refuse to let me in, after I had smiled sweetly upon him,” replied Patricia. “Now, a little more sleep for you, young lady———”

Later, Patricia sent a telegram to James Harley in Napier. She signed it “Patricia.” She had a curious belief that the name would find him and bring him home.

“I’m the kind of woman who carries wish-bones, and who spits on her shoes for luck when she sees a white horse,” she decided at last. “In other words, a sentimental, superstitious fool!”

****

“Here, you!” called a harassed clerk, as a telegraph messenger sauntered past the counter of Napier’s temporary central Post Office. “Take these wires and see if you can find this fellow Harley.”