“Was the model large or was it small, so that it could easily be stolen and hidden away?” she asked, while Polly Haddon looked up at her with something like surprise in her black eyes.
“It was large,” she answered. “And rather heavy. It could not be easily stolen, and neither could it have been hidden away in any small place. That is why we wondered. But why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” answered Billie honestly. “Perhaps it is just because I would like to help you so much.”
The woman reached over and patted her hand gently, but her eyes had become listless again.
“You—everybody—have been so good to me,” she said, tonelessly. “I don’t know why you have been so good—no one ever was before. But there is one thing you can not do for me. You can not restore my poor husband’s invention, the loss of which caused his death. That would be a miracle. And in these days no one is working miracles.”
Mrs. Haddon left the room for a moment, and in that moment Billie slipped the little box containing their three precious gold pieces behind the alarm clock that stood on a shelf over the sink.
The woman returned before Billie had quite finished, but she was too worried and anxious and unhappy to notice anything unusual. And the little box was still safe in its hiding place when the girls took their leave a few minutes later.
“Won’t she be surprised when she finds it?” crowed Vi delightedly. “I feel like Santa Claus.”
“Well, you don’t look like it,” returned Laura, “Your face isn’t red enough.”