“Verena, if I am to be frank with you, you must be frank with me.”
“I think perhaps she was not won round to you quite as easily as I was.”
“You are right, my dear. It was harder to win her; but she is worth winning. I shall not rest until I bring her round altogether to my side. Now, little girl, listen. You know what a very odd child we are all forced to consider your sister Pen?”
“I should think so, indeed.” Verena laughed.
“Well, your sister found out one day, not very long after I came, that I had lost a thimble.”
“Your beautiful gold thimble? Of course we all knew about that,” said Verena. “We were all interested, and we all tried to find it.”
“I thought so. I knew that Pen in particular searched for it with considerable pains, and I offered her a small prize if she found it.”
Verena laughed.
“Poor Pen!” she said. “She nearly broke her back one day searching for it. Oh, Aunt Sophy! I hope you will learn to do without it, for I am greatly afraid that it will not be found now.”
“And yet, Verena,” said Miss Tredgold—and she laid her hand, which slightly shook, on the girl’s arm—“I could tell you of a certain person in this house to whom a certain dress belongs, and unless I am much mistaken, in the pocket of that dress reposes the thimble with its sapphire base, its golden body, and its rim of pale-blue turquoise.”