"Nonsense," cried Prue with nervous anger, "you've left them in the bathroom, or on the kitchen shelves. You're always leaving them somewhere over the place. Come on, and we'll search the house just to convince you."
"No, no," shrieked the twins. "Let's lock the door and get under the bed."
The rings were really valuable. Their grandmother, their mother's mother, whom they had never seen, had divided her "real jewelry" between her two daughters. And the mother of these parsonage girls, had further divided her portion to make it reach through her own family of girls! Prudence had a small but beautiful chain of tiny pearls. Fairy's share consisted of a handsome brooch, with a "sure-enough diamond" in the center! The twin rubies of another brooch had been reset in rings for Carol and Lark, and were the priceless treasures of their lives! And in the dungeon was a solid gold bracelet, waiting until Connie's arm should be sufficiently developed to do it justice.
"Our rings! Our rings!" the twins were wailing, and Connie, awakened by the noise, was crying beneath the covers of her bed.
"Maybe we'd better phone for Mr. Allan," suggested Fairy. "The girls are so nervous they will be hysterical by the time we finish searching the house."
"Well, let's do the up-stairs then," said Prudence. "Get your slippers and kimonos, and we'll go into daddy's room."
But inside the door of daddy's room, with the younger girls clinging to her, and Fairy looking odd and disturbed, Prudence stopped abruptly and stared about the room curiously.
"Fairy, didn't father leave his watch hanging on that nail by the table? Seems to me I saw it there this morning. I remember thinking I would tease him for being forgetful."
And the watch was not there.
"I think it was Sunday he left it," answered Fairy in a low voice. "I remember seeing it on the nail, and thinking he would need it,—but I believe it was Sunday."