"I'm very, very sorry," Lulu said at length, "but I don't see why you should give way like this. Father will do all he possibly can to find the brooch for you, and—anyway, it's no good crying and making yourself ill, is it?"
"No," Celia agreed, "but—but, I'm so miserable, and you don't understand."
"What don't I understand?" Lulu inquired, considerably mystified.
But Celia declined to explain, and Lulu retired to her own room, telling herself it was useless trying to get any sense from her visitor.
Long did Celia lay awake that night. She wept until she made herself feel positively ill and then, when she was quite exhausted, she could not rest for wondering what everyone would think of her when it became known that she had stolen the butterfly brooch and had lost it.
"Yes, that's the real truth," she reflected. "Oh, what a wicked, wicked girl I've been! I wish mother was here—or Joy! Oh, I would tell Joy all about it! How I regret I ever came to visit the Tillotsons! And yet they've been so kind. Oh, what shall I do? I shall be going back to the Moat House in a few days, and if I don't get the butterfly brooch before then, I don't know what will happen."
The next morning Celia took her place at the breakfast-table in a very subdued frame of mind. Lulu and Mr. Tillotson looked at her pale cheeks and heavy eyes pityingly; and the latter, with the best intentions in the world, did not tend to raise her spirits by telling her that he himself would inform Sir Jasper of her loss.
"Oh, please, not to-day! Do not tell him to-day!" Celia implored. "Perhaps the brooch may be found, and then he need never know it was lost. Oh, I am afraid he will think me so—so careless!"
As soon as breakfast was over, Mr. Tillotson began writing out a description of the lost article, with the intention of having bills printed and posted about the town, whilst Celia watched him, actually quivering with nervousness. Before he had completed his task to his satisfaction, however, there was a ring at the front door bell, and a few moments later a servant came to inform him that he was wanted. When he returned, which was in a very short while, his face wore a look of relief, and going straight up to Celia, he placed the butterfly brooch in her hand. The little girl uttered a cry of intense joy, and gazed at the sparkling jewel with eyes shining through a mist of glad tears.
"Where did you get it, father?" Lulu asked, eagerly.