Jacqueline laughed hysterically, and at sight of what her parted lips disclosed, Aunt Martha gave a cry of triumph.
“Those braces, Judge,” she cried. “The braces on her teeth! There just couldn’t be two children with the identical same dental work. In fact, I don’t believe my real niece has any such.”
The Judge looked at Aunt Martha with genuine approval.
“You always did have a good head on your shoulders, Martha,” he said. “Dental work, eh? Come to think of it, I know myself that the little girl at The Chimnies has had no dentistry done in several years. I rode into Boston one day with Penelope, when she was taking the child to the dentist, and she commented quite sharply on the way in which her teeth had been neglected. So now if this little girl will give us the address of her dentist——”
“It’s Dr. Graydon on the tenth floor of the Wouverman Building in Los Angeles,” Jacqueline answered readily. “Most all the girls I know go to him.”
The Judge wrote down the address methodically, in a little black note-book.
“I’ll wire him at once,” he said, more to Aunt Martha than to Jacqueline. “I shall have to retain these beads, as a matter of form, until the child’s story is proved or disproved. Meantime it will help to settle this affair if she returns the five dollars she got from the little Trowbridge girl.”
Oh, dear! Here were more storm clouds gathering, just as the sky seemed about to clear!
“I can’t return the money,” Jacqueline faltered. “I—I spent it.”
The Judge looked grave again, but his voice was patient, and Aunt Martha was encouraging, so Jacqueline managed to give a full account of the act that she now was so ashamed of—the taking of Caroline’s precious old beads, and the pledging them with Miss Crevey.