Yet, when the talkative Miss Titus had gone Agnes went to the room the little folks kept their playthings and doll families in, and picked up the Alice-doll which chanced that day to be wearing the silver band. She removed it from the doll and took it to the window where the light was better.
Yes! It was true as she had thought. There were several crosswise scratches on the inside of the circlet. They might easily have been made by a boy’s jackknife.
“I declare! Who really knows where this bracelet came from, and who actually owns it? Maybe it is not Queen Alma’s ornament after all. Dear, me! this Kenway family is forever getting mixed up in difficulties that positively have nothing to do with us.
“The silly old bracelet! Why couldn’t those Gypsy women have sold that basket to Margaret and Holly Pease, or to some other little girls instead of to our Tess and Dot. Mrs. McCall says that some people seem to attract trouble, just as lightning-rods attract lightning, and I guess the Kenways are some of those people!”
Neale did not come over again that day, so she had nobody to discuss this new slant in the matter with. And if Agnes could not “talk out loud” about her troubles, she was apt to grow irritable. At least, the little girls said after supper that she was cross.
“Ruth doesn’t talk that way to us,” declared Tess, quite hurt, and gathering up her playthings from the various chairs in the sitting room where the family usually gathered in the evenings. “I don’t think I should like her to be away all the time.”
This was Tess’s polite way of criticising Agnes. But Dot was not so hampered by politeness.
“Crosspatch!” she exclaimed. “That’s just what you are, Aggie Kenway.”
And she started for bed in quite a huff. Agnes was glad, a few minutes later, that the two smaller girls had gone upstairs, even if they had gone away in this unhappy state of mind. Mrs. McCall had come in and sat down at some mending and the room was very quiet. Suddenly a noise outside on the porch made Agnes raise her head and look at the nearest window.
“What is the matter wi’ ye, lassie?” asked Mrs. McCall, startled.