Two Little Women on a Holiday by Carolyn Wells (popular romance novels .txt) 📖

Bernice said, “Which one?”

“The Byzantine earring, the gold filigree piece.”

“Oh,” cried Alicia, “that lovely piece! Why, where can it be?”

“I don’t know,” replied her uncle, slowly. “I searched everywhere, and as I couldn’t find it, I came down here to ask if you girls had taken it as—as a joke on me.”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Alicia. “I’d scorn to do such a mean trick! None of us would think of such a thing, would we, girls?”

“No, indeed,” said they all, and then a silence fell. Where could the jewel be? As always, in moments of excitement, Dolly turned very pale while Dotty flushed furiously red. Alicia, sat, her big eyes staring with dismay and Bernice nervously picked at her handkerchief.

“Come now,” said Mr. Forbes, “if any of you girls did take it, in jest, give it up, for it isn’t a funny joke at all.”

“Oh, we didn’t! I’m sure none of us did!” and Dolly almost wailed in her earnest denial.

“Of course, we didn’t!” declared Dotty, angrily. “You ought to know we’re not that sort of girls! It must have been mislaid, or pushed behind something that conceals it from view.”

“Probably you’re right,” and Mr. Forbes looked at her intently. “That’s probably the solution of its disappearance. I’ll have Fenn make search tomorrow. I’m sorry I bothered you about it. Goodnight.”

With his funny abruptness he left the room, and the girls sat looking at each other in amazement.

“Did you ever hear anything like that!” demanded Dotty, furiously. “The idea of thinking we would do such a thing! I hate practical jokes, unless among a lot of school chums. I wouldn’t think of playing a joke on a grown-up!”

“Uncle Jeff hasn’t had much experience with young folks,” put in Alicia, by way of excuse for their host. “You know he always lives alone, and he doesn’t know what girls would or wouldn’t do.”

“But how awful for that thing to be lost,” mused Bernice. “Suppose it fell down behind a case, or somewhere, and he NEVER finds it!”

“Oh, his secretary will find it,” said Dolly, hopefully. “It MUST be somewhere around. Don’t let’s talk about it. If we do, I shan’t sleep a wink all night! I never do, if I worry.”

“I think it’s something to worry about,” said Alicia. “It’s the worst blow Uncle Jeff could have. You know how he adores his treasures. Why, he’d rather lose everything from these downstairs than one specimen out of those fourth story rooms. And that gold earring, of all things!”

“I tell you stop talking about it!” and Dolly clapped her hands over her ears. “Please, humour me in this,” she added, smiling a little, “truly, it will keep me awake, if I get to worrying over it.”

“All right, girls, let’s drop the subject. Also, let’s go to bed.” It was Alicia who spoke, and she seemed under great excitement. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, and her cheeks were pink, and she moved jerkily, as if nervous.

So the four went up to their rooms, and saying goodnight, they closed the door of communication between.

“What’s the matter, Dollums?” asked Dotty, as she saw tears in the blue eyes.

“Nothing, Dot, only don’t talk about that gold thing, will you? I just simply can’t stand it if you do!”

“‘Course I won’t if you don’t want me to, only what DO you s’pose DID become of it?”

“There you go! I think you’re too mean for anything!”

“Oh, pshaw, I didn’t mean to. I forgot. All right, no more talk ‘bout that old rubbish. What shall us talk about?”

“Don’t talk at all. I’d rather go to sleep.”

“Go, then, old crossy! But I s’pose you don’t mean to sleep in your clothes!”

“No,” and Dolly laughed a little. “I know I’m an old bear, and a crosspatch, and everything horrid,—but I’m nervous, Dotty, I AM.”

“I know it, old girl, but you’ll get over it. I believe this city life is wearing you out! I believe it’s time you went home.”

“Oh, I think so, too. I wish we could go tomorrow!”

“Well, we can’t. What has got into you, Dollyrinda? I believe you’re homesick!”

“I am, Dotty! I’d give anything to see mother now.—I wish I was home in my own room.”

“You’ll be there soon enough. I s’pose we’ll go Wednesday.”

“Wednesday! that seems ages off!”

“Why, Dollums, tomorrow, you can say Wednesday is day after tomorrow! That’s what I always do if I want to hurry up the days. But I don’t want to hurry up our days in New York! No sir-ee! I love every one of ‘em! I wish we could stay a month!”

“I don’t!” and then there were few more words said between the two that night. Soon they were in bed, and if Dolly lay awake, Dotty didn’t know it, for she fell asleep almost as soon as her dark curly head touched its pillow.

Meantime in the next room, the other two were talking.

“I do hope Uncle Jeff will find his old jewel,” Bernice said, pettishly. “We won’t have a bit more fun, if he doesn’t.” “That’s so,” agreed Alicia, “but he won’t find it.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, ‘cause. It’s very likely fallen down some crack or somewhere that nobody’d think of looking. Why, once, a photograph was on our mantel, and it disappeared most mysteriously. And we never could find it. And after years, there was a new mantelpiece put in, and there was the picture! It had slipped down a narrow mite of a crack between the mantel-shelf and the wall back of it.”

“Tell Uncle Jeff that tomorrow. Maybe it will help him to find the thing.”

“All right, I will. But of course, Mr. Fenn will look everywhere possible. I don’t believe anybody’ll ever find it.”

“Then Uncle will be cast down and upset all the rest of the time we’re here.”

“Well, I can’t help that. What do you suppose, Bernice, he asked us here for, anyway?”

“You ask me that a hundred dozen times a day, ‘Licia! I tell you I don’t know, but I think it was only a whim. You know how queer he is. He forgets we’re in this house from one evening to the next. If to-day hadn’t been Sunday, we wouldn’t have seen him this afternoon. I wish we were going to stay another week.”

“So do I. But I don’t like to ask him outright, and he hasn’t said anything about it lately. The others couldn’t stay, anyway.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think if they were invited their mothers would let them. And anyway, I’d rather stay without them, than to go home.”

“Yes, I would, too. Dot likes it better than Dolly.”

“Yes, Dolly’s homesick. Anybody can see that. But they like it when we go to places, and see sights.”

“Who wouldn’t? We’re really having fairy-tale times, you know.”

“I know it. I shall hate to go back to school.”

“Well, I don’t hate to go home. I have good enough times in Berwick; but I’d like to stay here one week more. I think I’ll ask Uncle Jeff to let us, if he doesn’t ask us himself.”

“Wait till he finds his lost treasure. He’ll be pretty blue if he doesn’t get that back.”

“Yes, indeed he will. Let’s hope the Fenn man will spy it out. It must be in that room somewhere, you know.”

“Of course it must. The secretary will find it. That’s what secretaries are for.”

And then silence and sleep descended on that room also.

Next morning, Mr. Forbes appeared at the breakfast table. This was the first time they had ever seen him in the morning and the girls greeted him cheerily.

“Very nice,” he said, affably, “to come down and breakfast with a flock of fresh young rosebuds like you,” and he seemed so good-natured, that Alicia decided he had taken his loss more easily than she had feared.

But toward the end of the meal, Mr. Forbes made known the reason of his early appearance.

“We can’t find that earring,” he said, suddenly. “Mr. Fenn and I have been looking since six o’clock this morning. Now I’m going to ask you girls to help me. Will you all come up to the museum and hunt? Your young eyes may discern it, where we older seekers have failed. At any rate, I’d like you to try.”

The four expressed ready willingness, and they rose from the table and followed Uncle Jeff up the stairs to the rear room where the loss had occurred.

The sun shone in at the southern windows, and flooded the room with brightness. It seemed impossible to overlook the treasure, and surely it must be found at once.

A youngish man was there before them, and he was introduced as the secretary. Lewis Fenn was a grave looking, solemn-faced chap, who, it was evident took seriously the responsibility of his position as tabulator and in part, custodian of valuable treasures. He bowed to the girls, but said nothing beyond a word of greeting to each.

“You see,” said Mr. Forbes, “I locked this room myself, after you girls last evening, and nobody could get in to take the earring. Consequently, it would seem that a close search MUST be efficacious. So, let us all set to, and see what we can do in the way of discovery.”

“Let’s divide the room in four,” suggested Mr. Fenn, “and one of you young ladies take each quarter.”

“Good idea!” commented Uncle Jeff, “and we’ll do just that. Alicia, you take this west end, next the door; Bernice, the east end, opposite; Dotty, the north side, and Dolly, the south side. There, that fixes it. Now, to work, all of you. I’ve exhausted my powers of search, and so has Fenn.”

The two men sat down in the middle of the room, while the girls eagerly began to search. They were told not to look in the cases, but merely on tables or any place around the room where the jewel might have fallen or been laid.

“Who had it last?” asked Mr. Fenn, as the girls searched here and there.

Nobody seemed to know, exactly, and then Alicia said, suddenly, “Why, don’t you know, Dolly hooked it onto the front of her dress, and said it would make a lovely pendant.”

“But I took it off,” said Dolly, turning white.

“Where did you put it then?” asked Mr. Fenn, not unkindly, but curiously.

“Let me see,” faltered Dolly, “I don’t quite remember. I guess I laid it on this table.”

“If so, it must be there now, my dear,” said Mr. Forbes, suavely. “Look thoroughly.”

Dolly did look thoroughly, and Dotty came over to help her, but the earring was not on the table.

Nor was it on other tables that were about the room; nor on any chair or shelf or settee or window-sill.

“Where CAN it be?” said Dotty, greatly alarmed, lest Dolly’s having fastened it to her dress should have been the means of losing it.

“Are you sure you removed it from your frock, Miss Fayre?” asked Fenn, and at that moment Dolly took a dislike to the man. His voice was low and pleasant, but the inflection was meaning, and he seemed to imply that Dolly might have worn it from the room.

“Of course, I am,” Dolly replied, in a scared, low voice, which trembled as she spoke.

“There’s an idea,” said Mr. Forbes. “Mightn’t you have left it hooked into your lace, Dolly, and it’s there still? Run and look, my dear.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Dotty, but Fenn said, “No, Miss Rose, you’d better stay here.”

Dotty was so astonished at his dictum that she stood still and stared at him. Dolly ran off to her room on the second