The two boys shook their heads. Their father followed Janet around to the back door and the brothers went with him. They saw Janet eagerly searching about the playhouse, looking on and in boxes and around the chairs and pieces of wood. Just then Mrs. Martin came to the back door. She greeted her husband with a kiss and then, turning to Janet, she said:
“Please give me back my diamond locket, my dear. You have played with it long enough.”
“Oh, Mother!” gasped Janet. “Haven’t you—didn’t you come out and take it? Haven’t you your locket?”
“Why, no, Janet, I haven’t it,” was the surprised answer. “I let you take it and you said you would bring it back to me.”
“I know I did, and I meant to. I took it off my neck to wash the dishes after our play dinner, and Trouble asked me to let him look at it and—Oh, Trouble, you have mother’s locket, haven’t you? That’s right, I let you take it. What did you do with it? Where is mother’s shiny gold and diamond locket, Trouble?”
Trouble looked surprised.
“I no have got it,” he said.
“But I let you take it!” insisted Janet. “You wanted to hold it in your hand because it sparkled so nice, and I let you. Didn’t you have the locket, Trouble?”
“Yes, I did have,” gravely admitted the small boy. “An’ it was pretty. It shined like the sun. But I gived it back to you, Jan. You put it on the box in the play kitchen. Don’t you ’member? I gived it back to you out of mine own hand!”
Janet gave a start and looked at the box. She remembered now.