"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."