Startled, indeed alarmed and shaking, Janice Day went as fast as she could to, the storeroom. Olga's trunk was gone. She did not see the treasure-box anywhere in the room.
She searched the room diligently. She ran from room to room—Olga's, her own, even the other bedrooms. She halted at last in her own room, sobbing and alarmed.
The treasure-box was gone. Olga's trunk had gone. Olga herself had gone.
And the photographs of Grandfather and Grandmother Avion, the old-fashioned jewelry, the diary her mother had kept as a little girl, the miniature Janice thought so much of—all, all the keepsakes her father had entrusted her with the night before, seemed to have gone With Olga and the trunk.
CHAPTER II. THE HUNT FOR THE TREASURE-BOX
This was a very tragic happening in Janice Day's life. She had never been regardless of important matters; that was why daddy had not even warned her to be careful of the treasure-box.
He assumed that she would consider its precious contents and guard it accordingly. Why! He had not even mentioned it this morning, he had been so confident of her good sense.
And because of Arlo Junior and a bunch of cats she had forgotten all about her mother's miniature and all the other heirlooms in the treasure-box! Her tears were those of anger at herself as well as sorrow because of the disappearance of the heirlooms. Yet at the moment she did not fully appreciate the full weight of the happening.
Janice could not stand and cry about it. She had assured herself that the treasure-box was not where she had left it—was not in the storeroom at all, as far as she could see. Olga certainly had not picked it up and placed it in any of the rooms on this second floor, or anywhere else where it could be easily seen.
Janice could only believe that the Swedish girl, either by intention or in some involuntary way, had carried the treasure-box off with her. Yet it did not seem as though Olga Cedarstrom, bad temper and all, could be a thief! That was an awful thought.