"I don't know, Bernie," and Dotty looked as if at her wits' end. "It's bad enough to put up with that old Fenn's hateful talk, but now Dolly's gone queer, and you say Alicia has,—what ARE we to do?"
"Let's talk it all over with Mrs. Berry at lunch, she's real sensible and she's very kind-hearted."
"Yes, she is. And there's the gong now. Come on, let's go down. Come on, Dollikins, brace up, and look pretty! Heigho! come on, Alicia!"
Alicia appeared, looking sullen rather than sad, and the quartette went downstairs.
Mrs. Berry listened with interest to their story. Interest that quickly turned to deep concern as the story went on.
"I don't like it," she said, as the girls paused to hear her comments. "No carelessness or thoughtlessness could make that valuable earring disappear off the face of the earth! I mean, it couldn't get LOST, it must have been taken."
"By us?" flared out Alicia.
"Maybe not meaningly, maybe for a joke, maybe unconsciously; but it was carried out of that room by some one, of that I'm certain."
"The idea of thinking we'd do it as a joke!" cried Bernice.
"But you told me about the joke Mr. Forbes played on you about the B. C. image, why mightn't one of you have taken this to tease him? Oh, girls, if any of you did,—give it back, I beg of you! Mr. Forbes is a kind man, but a very just one. If you give it back at once, and explain, he will forgive you, fully and freely. But if you delay too long he will lose patience. And, too, you must know he wants to—"