"I cannot be responsible for what Ida Bellethorne would do or say," replied the shopwoman grimly. "Not having been here myself when you came, Miss——"
"Oh, yes! I understand," said Betty hastily. "Well, thank you for keeping the blouse for us. Good-bye."
She and Bobby were not greatly pleased with Mrs. Staples. But they had no reason for distrusting her. When they had gone the shopwoman smiled a most wintry smile.
"Well, I am not supposed to tell people how to go about their own affairs, I should hope," was her thought. "That chit never told me what she had lost. It might have been a pair of shoes or a boiled lobster! Humph! Folks would better speak plain in this world. I always do, I am sure."
CHAPTER VIII
UNCLE DICK MUST BE TOLD
The two girls did not tell Bob Henderson all that had happened in the little shop when they first came out. They were in too much haste to get to the other places where it might be possible that Betty had dropped her locket. Of all things, they did not suspect that Mrs. Staples knew the first thing about it.
But they did tell the boy that Ida Bellethorne had gone away.
"Where's she gone?" asked the inquisitive Bob. "Couldn't be that she found the locket and ran off with it?"