dodging into the pantry and behind doors, so's I wouldn't see her laugh; and when I demanded an explanation, she only said: 'Oh, mother, don't ask me! I just can't help it!' And with that she burst out again."
Early the next morning, the breakfast work having been finished after a fashion, Ann once more crossed the fields toward the half-way stones. The sun was already high in the heavens, and no shadow Sphinx rested on the green turf. Ann had not expected to find it; she understood now why the artist had worked on the picture in the afternoon instead of in the morning. She knelt in front of the Sphinx picture and examined it critically, noting each detail of the curious figure, and tracing the ribbon-like band to the edge of the stone. Here she came upon the tiny arrows pointing outward. Surely, since the picture was an exact copy of the shadow and brook, with the exception of these arrows, might not they mean something of importance? She remembered that on maps the currents of streams were sometimes indicated by arrows; but in those cases the arrows pointed downstream, while here they pointed upstream. Slowly it dawned upon Ann that if the arrows were intended to convey any information, the point of interest must be in the direction which they indicated, which was toward the source of the brook. Acting upon this conviction, somewhat blindly, it is true, she followed the brook into the woodland beyond.
Soon the bed of the stream became narrower and the banks more irregular; tall trees hung over it, interlacing their branches from bank to bank, and wild grapevines drooped in graceful festoons, making natural swings. Ann had followed the same path many times before, but never with the sense of delightful expectancy that now possessed her. She could not have explained what she was looking for, but, sustained by her naturally buoyant temperament, she believed that she would clear up the mystery of the Sphinx picture; if not to-day, some other time. She might have to search for a week, or even longer, though how she could keep it to herself all that time was more of a riddle to her than the quest itself.
She pushed steadily upstream, keeping a sharp lookout for "clues," with occasional excursions into nearby thickets for ber-
