“Well, maybe not at a dance,” conceded Mabel, thinking of a “perfect dream” of a dress she had.
“Isn’t it too bad Cora and Gertrude can’t go with us?” spoke Marie, as she daintily powdered her nose.
“Yes, and Margaret, Sadie and Edna were wild to be with us when they heard about it, but they could not manage,” went on Alice referring to other members of the Camp Fire organization.
It was about two weeks after the loss of Mrs. Anderson’s ring. In the meanwhile, though a careful search had been made, no trace of it, nor of the Gypsy band had been found. The tribe seemed to have disappeared, which was not strange, as that region consisted of many little-explored patches of woodland, in which many bands might have hidden. The police of several towns could not trace the nomads.
True a tribe had been located soon after the dramatic episode of the fortune-telling, but they asserted they had not been near Middleford on the night in question, and neither the boys nor girls could pick out from amid the members of the band, Hadee, the pretty girl who had visited Mabel’s house.
“None of these Gypsy maidens were as pretty as she was,” declared Blake.
“You seem to have lost your heart to her,” commented Natalie.
“Not yet,” he said in a low voice.
And so Mrs. Anderson’s ring was given up—though the boys said the tribe was sure to return the next spring, since the Gypsies always made the same rounds year after year.
“And when they do come here we’ll have them pinched!” declared Phil.