CHAPTER XII.
CLANG-CLANG.
“What shall I do with the pansy costume, Cathalina?” asked Betty the next morning, as she was hanging some articles in the closet.
“Just give it to me. I’ll fold it and put it in my box. We need all the room in the closet.”
“All right,” assented Betty, “but I’ll fold it.”
Betty laid out the dress on the bed, preparatory to the folding process, and looking over it said, “O, one of the pretty little pansy dangle-ums is gone from this sleeve! I’m sorry. I don’t remember catching it in anything.”
“Perhaps it was gone to begin with, or was loose. I didn’t look it over when I gave it to you. It doesn’t matter at all.”
“It shows that one was there, and I don’t see where one can move any other to take its place. I’ll run downstairs and look. Perhaps I dropped it in the society hall. O, Hilary, may I have your key to the hall?”
Hilary handed Betty her shining new key which the girls had had made, and Betty went down, glancing at halls and stairs as she went. No small pansy appeared on the floor or among the decorations of the society hall. Betty even ran down the short flight from the first floor outdoors, unlocking the outer door which had not yet been opened and looked all around as if she expected some light on who had looked over her shoulder the night before.
“I couldn’t find it, Cathalina,” she reported. “They are so unusual that it is a pity. Don’t you really mind?”
“Not a bit, and I still think that it was gone before you ever put it on.”