"Mamma, some one has taken it. I never knew any thing so mean. Nora don't know any thing about it."
"Who would take it, Lily? I certainly did not, and you say Nora did not. Papa or Tom could have no reason for touching it. I will tell you what I think."
"What mamma?" asked Lily, anxiously.
"That you could not have put it away yesterday when you stopped sewing upon it. Think a moment, my daughter; can you distinctly recollect putting it away in your box?"
Lily stood considering one moment; then dismay and shame gradually overspread her face.
"No, mamma, I just believe I did not. When I was going to put away my petticoat in the box, I heard papa come in, and I wanted to know why he had come home so early; so I thought I would just wait one moment, and put it away when I had asked him, and I dropped it on the floor and ran to papa. And you know he had come to take us to see those pictures, and I never thought another thing about the petticoat. I quite forgot I had not put it away when I told you I had. I will go and look in the sitting-room where I was sewing yesterday."
But her search proved fruitless, although she certainly did look thoroughly through every part of the room. Nora was called, and took her part, but all in vain; and at last mamma came. Mrs. Norris rather felt that she should let Lily be at all the trouble of finding the petticoat for herself; but the child seemed so grieved that she could not bear to punish her in that way. But mamma was not more successful than her little daughter and the nurse had been, although in the end every servant was questioned, and every room searched.
"It is very strange. Are you quite sure you have not seen it, Hannah?" asked Mrs. Norris of her chambermaid, a rather dull girl, who had been but a short time in the house. "Have you seen nothing of the kind lying about in the sitting-room, or did you not touch Miss Lily's box?"
"Miss Lily's harnsum box, is it, ma'am? Sure, and I did see that a sittin' on the floor, where I thought you'd not be plased to see it at all at all, so I just lifted it to the table where I seen it sittin' before; but ne'er a thing I seen beside it. It wouldn't be Miss Lily's work what I found the puppy a pullin' round the ary, ma'am,—the mischavous baste that he is, my heart's most broke with him,—an' I didn't take heed what it was, but seein' it that dirty, I just put it in the basket with the siled clothes."