CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH AN OLD FRIEND APPEARS, AND THE BRIDAL TRIP TAKES A FRESH START
"Gone?" cried Euphemia, who, with myself, had been listening most intently to Pomona's story.
"Yes," continued Pomona; "she was gone. I gave one jump out of bed and felt the gases, but they was all right. But she was gone, an' her clothes was gone. I dressed, as pale as death, I do expect, an' hurried to Jone's room, an' he an' me an' the big man was all ready in no time to go an' look for her. General Tom Thumb didn't seem very anxious, but we made him hurry up an' come along with us. We couldn't afford to leave him nowheres. The clerk downstairs—a different one from the chap who was there the night before—said that a middle-aged, elderly lady came down about an hour before, an' asked him to tell her the way to the United States Bank, an' when he told her he didn't know of any such bank, she jus' stared at him, an' wanted to know what he was put there for. So he didn't have no more to say to her, an' she went out, an' he didn't take no notice which way she went. We had the same opinion about him that Mrs. Jackson had, but we didn't stop to tell him so. We hunted up an' down the streets for an hour or more; we asked every policeman we met if he'd seen her; we went to a police-station; we did everything we could think of, but no Mrs. Jackson turned up. Then we
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