"Oh, how beautiful," called out a voice in which all three were blended.
"These must have been Loved One's!" said Mary, in an awed voice, and her companions, too astonished to speak, simply stared at the glittering treasures.
There were several pins with beautiful sparkling stones, a number of rings, lockets; in fact the collection seemed to include a supply of fine jewelry, such as a woman of means and social prominence might covet.
"However will you carry them?" asked Madaline, first to recover from the surprise.
"I don't know," Mary replied, still dazed and overcome. To her the discovery meant more than a collection of jewelry; it meant that her mother must have been a wealthy and prominent woman. This fact, however, Mary always understood, but in her hands now were seemingly new proofs.
"Let us attend to the orchids to-day, Mary," suggested Grace, "while you finish your packing. Come on, Madie, get the small cans."
"All right," Cleo agreed. "I'll help Mary find something to carry her treasures in, and also help her finish packing. We will then likely all be finished about the same time. What a lot of things we have to look over when we get home! Mary, I am sure some of those lockets will have pictures in them," and all the while she was talking Cleo was running here and there, or hither and thither, as Jennie would have said, in a hurry to finish the tasks.
"I know where I can get a good strong bag," Mary said, "but I haven't been upstairs since we went away. This big bungalow, having the sleeping rooms on the first floor, always seemed complete without upstairs."
"I'm not afraid to go up," Cleo volunteered. "I'll take Shep. Where is he?"
At the sound of his name Shep sprang forward, carrying in his teeth the remnants of a yellow handkerchief he had torn almost to shreds.