"Oh, Miss Martine, we brought the trunk with us from Boston. It was in the storeroom. I don't know anything about it, except it came the day before Class Day. There was a laundress working there that afternoon, and I remember she told me she had had a trunk sent to the trunk-room. I supposed you told her, and of course when we moved, all the trunks came here. You told me they were to come."
"Perhaps you are not altogether to blame, Angelina, although I wish that you had said something to mamma or me, and I still don't understand why the trunk was sent to us."
It was now Elinor's turn to explain. "I understand it all. When I left Bar Harbor for Class Day, I simply put on a tag with my name and I didn't notice this old label, which was the one I used when I spent a day or two with you in the spring. The expressman followed the Belhaven tag, instead of keeping my trunk with Kate's aunt,—so if any one is to blame, it is I for leaving that tag on."
"I am not so sure of that," replied Martine. "If I had been a really up-to-date housekeeper I should have known exactly what trunks came down to York. Now I only hope that our burglar didn't make way with any of your things."
"We'll soon know;" already Elinor was on her knees before the trunk.
"No" she said, "I hardly think he took anything. The trunk is closely packed below the tray, and the tray would hold little more than these things he tumbled out. But I remember a set of topaz studs in a box that I put in this corner. The box is not here."
After a careful search neither she nor Martine could find the studs. But Elinor was philosophical over this loss.
"In finding the trunk I feel as if I had recovered a small fortune—and I can bear the loss of the studs. I daresay Kate will be pleased to get back her things, although she is so up-to-date, that she may consider these class-day clothes old-fashioned now, as they were made to wear two months ago."
"How ridiculous!" exclaimed Martine, "and yet," she admitted, "I can remember when I would not wear anything that was not of the very latest, but now—why this is a last year's shirt-waist, and you know how the sleeves have changed."
A few hours later Martine and Elinor were telling the story of the "Class-day trunk," as they dubbed it, to a group of merry young people on the piazza of the hotel, and every one teased Martine about her skill in abstracting so important a part of Elinor's wardrobe.