There was no one to see the pretty picture that was made by the blue-eyed girl with her golden hair, as she stood looking up at the other older girl so like her. How Jannet loved to feel the pearls on her neck. She would like to wear them all the time, she thought, but she sighed as she thought of their value. How many things might have happened to them in these years, and why had not her mother been able to find them? There they were, right in the drawer, as her mother must have put them away,—unless someone had taken them for a joke, or spite, and put them back later.
That thought troubled Jannet, but she was not right. A more peculiar circumstance than she could then imagine had hidden the pearls.
Should she tell her uncle about them? Jannet considered that for some time, while she carefully looped the pearls again and replaced them. No, she did not believe that she would. She would know her uncle a little better first before she made a confidant of him. And if she did tell him about the pearls, or the scrap of paper, for that matter, she would have somebody else present, too. What if Uncle Pieter should claim the necklace! Oh, he couldn’t have the heart to take anything of her mother’s away from her—but she “guessed she wouldn’t tell him just yet.”
Jannet knew that she would not forget where the spring was, but after she closed the drawer again, she gave the surroundings a rub with her handkerchief, for want of a duster, and then closed the desk just in time, for there was a great rapping upon her door. It was Jan, drumming again on the panels and calling her.
“Jannetje Jan,” came the call, with the Dutch Y sound for J.
“Yes, Yan,” she answered, running to open the door, for she had slipped the bolt as well, when she started in on the desk.
“Get ready to ride, won’t you? Nell and Chick are out here,” said Jan, adding, when the door was opened, “and worse luck, I’ve got to go back with Chick and finish up school! We only have a day or two more of fun!”
“I’ll be out in a minute, Jan. I’m aching for a ride. Will you get my horse ready while I dress?”
“Yep,—intended to. Make it snappy.” With this, Jan went away, while Jannet, elated with her discovery, the mystery of it all, and the prospect of fun with her young friends, hurried into her riding clothes.