"And these are my greatest treasure," said Miss Pompret. "I am very proud of them. They have been in my family over a hundred years. But there is a sad story about it—a very sad story about the old Pompret china." And the lady's face clouded.
"Did somebody break it?" asked Bert. Once he had broken a plate of which his mother was very proud, and he remembered how sad she felt.
"No, my china wasn't broken," said Miss Pompret. "In fact, there is a sort of mystery about it."
"Oh, please tell me!" begged Nan. "I like nice dishes and I like stories."
She and Bert looked at the closet of choice china dishes. Children though they were, they could see that the plates, cups, saucers and other dishes were not like the kind set on their table every day.
What could Miss Pompret mean about a "mystery" connected with her set of china?
CHAPTER V
"WHAT A LOT OF MONEY!"
Bert and Nan sat up very straight on the chairs in Miss Pompret's dining room, and looked first at her and then at the china closet with its shiny, glass doors. Miss Pompret sat up very straight, too, in her chair, and she, also, looked first from Nan and Bert to the wonderful china, which seemed made partly of egg shells, so fine it was and pretty.
Miss Pompret's dining room was one in which it seemed every one had to sit up straight, and in which every chair had to be in just the right place, where the table legs must keep very straight, too, and where not even a corner of a rug dared to be turned up. In fact it was a very straight, old-fashioned but very beautiful dining room, and Miss Pompret herself was an old-fashioned but beautiful lady.