“You couldn’t, anyway,” said the practical Dot. “She will want to know where we got the money to pay for the basket. Oh, do open it, Tess. Isn’t it lovely?”
The cover worked on a very ingeniously contrived hinge. Had the children known much about such things they must have seen that the basket was worth much more than the price they had paid for it—much more indeed than the price the Gypsies had first asked.
Tess lifted the cover. Dot crowded nearer to look in. The shadows of the little girls’ heads at first hid the bottom of the basket. Then both saw something gleaming dully there. Tess and Dot cried out in unison; but it was the latter’s brown hand that darted into the basket and brought forth the bracelet.
“A silver bracelet!” Tess gasped.
“Oh, look at it!” cried Dot. “Did you ever? Do you s’pose it’s real silver, Tess?”
“Of course it is,” replied her sister, taking the circlet in her own hand. “How pretty! It’s all engraved with fret-work—”
“Hey!” ejaculated Sammy coming closer. “What’s that?”
“Oh, Sammy! A silver bracelet—all fretted, too,” exclaimed the highly excited Dot.
“Huh! What’s that? ‘Fretted’? When my mother’s fretted she’s—Say! how can a silver bracelet be cross, I want to know?”
“Oh, Sammy,” Tess suddenly ejaculated, “these Gypsy women will be cross enough when they miss this bracelet!”