"We'll all look for the dolly. Surely it can't have been
taken out of the house."
"And who'd even take it out of her closet?" demanded Tom, almost
as stern as his father.
"It surely didn't walk away of itself," said Aunt Kate.
She took a small hand lamp and went with Nan to the east chamber.
They searched diligently, but to no good end, save to assure Nan
that Beulah had utterly disappeared.
As far as could be seen the screens at the windows of the bedroom
had not been disturbed. But who would come in from outside to
steal Nan's doll? Indeed, who would take it out of the closet,
anyway? The girl was almost sure that nobody had known she had
it. It was strange, very strange indeed.
Big girl that she was, Nan cried herself to sleep that night over
the mystery. The loss of Beulah seemed to snap the last bond
that held her to the little cottage in Amity street, where she
had spent all her happy childhood.
Chapter XXIV
THE SMOKING TREE
Nan awoke to a new day with the feeling that the loss of her
treasured doll must have been a bad dream. But it was not.
Another search of her room and the closet assured her that it was
a horrid reality.
She might have lost many of her personal possessions without a
pang; but not Beautiful Beulah.
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