“It looks very much like Augusta’s,” returned Marjory.
“Whose watch is that?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t mine.”
“Is this your ring?”
“Not any of those things are mine. Those handkerchiefs seem to be Miss Wilson’s. There’s a name on them.”
“Where is the money that was in these pocketbooks? Mrs. Bryan lost seven dollars and Mrs. Brown lost five—their cards are still in their purses.”
“I’m sure I don’t know. I’ve had my thirty cents a week and that’s all. If you really found those things in my drawer, somebody else must have put them there. I didn’t.”
The Rhodes family didn’t know exactly what to think. Marjory was sometimes thoughtlessly just a little bit impertinent, sometimes inclined to giggle when the occasion demanded sobriety, sometimes fidgety when quietness would have seemed more fitting; but Mrs. Henry Rhodes who, of the three, knew her best, had never known her to attempt to lie. If anything, indeed, she could recall times when Marjory had seemed almost too truthful.
“I think,” said Mrs. Henry, with a kind hand on Marjory’s shoulder, “we had better let this matter rest a little until something else comes up. There is something very queer about it. That pocketbook in Sallie’s room and now this. And everything so clearly marked.”
“But I don’t want this matter to rest,” protested Marjory. “I want it cleared up right away tonight. My goodness! This is just awful. I do love those beads of Hazel’s; but I didn’t take them. And, oh dear! There are girls that are going to believe I did unless you clear things up at once. I don’t want folks to think things like that about me.”