“He’d just adore you,” said Nina, “I know he would.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Josie. “He adores Brenda; he says it’s because she’s so exceedingly fair and—and—pretty.”
Mademoiselle asked a few questions with regard to the Reverend Josiah, and drew her own conclusions that it would not particularly suit her little game to be governess to the small Amberleys. She took them home in good time, and when they entered their bedroom, followed them into the seclusion of that apartment.
“You are so fatiguées,” she said; “let me help you to undress. Nina, you little naughty one, where is the key of the drawer from where you purloined the bangle? I will it restore with my own hands.”
Nina, now completely under Mademoiselle’s influence, revealed the spot under the carpet where she had hidden the key. She produced it and Mademoiselle ran and opened the drawer, where she found the little box. She opened it.
“Give me the bangle, and we will pop it inside,” she said.
Nina did so.
“I am glad to get rid of it,” murmured the child. “It wasn’t such great fun wearing it, after all.”
“I have my hopes that some day this most precious little Nina will wear a bangle of gold real, with a turquoise the most valuable,” said Mademoiselle.
As she spoke, she adroitly dropped the wrong bangle into the box and slipped the real one into her pocket. She then carefully locked the drawer and returned the key to its place of secrecy under the carpet.