"Oh no; dear Goody says it would go into anybody's pocket. A little box with a padlock and a little key. I knew Jack did not take it, but of course as he ran away that very day it looks like it. Even Susan shakes her head, and I never talk of Jack to her. But," said Joy, "I am tired now, and I think I'll take what Uncle Bobo calls 'forty winks.'"
Everything was very quiet after that; and when Bet saw Joy was asleep, she crept downstairs, and in the shop saw Mrs. Harrison.
Miss Pinckney's shutters were closed, and she felt free to come over and have a last look at Joy.
"A little box! a little box!" Bet repeated to herself as she went home. "A box so small it would go into anybody's pocket." And Bet that night lay awake pondering many things, and repeating very often, "A little box!"
CHAPTER XI.
MR. SKINNER IN COMMAND.
Mrs. Skinner was more silent than ever during the next few days, and when she spoke it was to scold Bet in a rasping voice.
She was suffering from that very bad mental disease which is beyond the reach of doctors, and is a perpetual torment; and that disease is called remorse.
Of late she had been haunted by the memory of her only daughter, and of her harshness to her. The man she had chosen to marry was good, and to all appearance above the class in which Maggie was born. There was nothing against him but poverty. He had been a travelling photographer, who set up his little van with "Photographic Studio" painted on the canvas cover in large letters, and had sometimes done a brisk trade on Yarmouth sands. One of his first customers had been Maggie Skinner, then in her fresh beauty, and a tempting subject for a photographer or artist.