"It's all right, Cecily; it's sure to be all right—in the end. We would love you and want you if nobody else did. And I'm sure Miss Benedict must care for you too. She really acts so. But the question is, how did you ever come to be sent here at all? Didn't your mother ever say anything to you about this place or any of the people over here?"
"No," said Cecily, in a hushed voice. It was evident from her manner that her grief over the loss of her mother was very keen, and she had only once voluntarily referred to it or to anything connected with it.
"My mother never, never mentioned the name of Benedict to me,—I never heard of it before."
"But couldn't Miss Benedict possibly have been some connection—some distant connection that she never thought of or mentioned?" persisted Marcia.
"No—my mother's people were all English," declared Cecily, "and they were all dead. We had no relatives living."
"Well, your father, then?" supplemented Janet. "What about him?"
"I never knew him to remember him. Mother said he died when I was a baby a year or two old. He hadn't any relatives, either."
"Well, here's something else we have to tell you, and it's the strangest thing yet," began Janet. "Can you tell us where you got that bracelet, Cecily,—the one you were so lovely as to send to us?"
"Why, I always had it," answered Cecily. "Even when I was a tiny little girl and it was much too big for me, it seemed to be mine. Mother kept it in a box, but she let me play with it once in a while. Then when I was older and it fitted me better, she let me wear it. I think she said my father gave it to me. I don't remember very clearly. I don't believe I ever thought much about it, although I realized it was rather unusual. But why do you ask?"
"Did she ever say it had a mate—that there was a pair of them?" questioned Marcia.