"Exactly. She lost it," and to end her increasing wonder, Jack told his sister the circumstances.
Cora wanted to go at once and return the ring to Ida, but Jack said:
"No, we'll wait for her to call. If she wants it very much she'll come."
"But why don't you want me to give it to her?"
"Well, I'll tell you some other time," and with that evasive answer
Cora had to be content.
Several days passed, and Ida did not come, but Jack would not consent to Cora returning the ring to her. In the meanwhile the young people had discussed over and over again the beautiful fete given by Cora, though the finding of the bonds and the story of the ring was kept within a small, select circle. Ed Foster took the bonds to the bank and received for them part of the stock for which he had negotiated. The rest, he said, would be held for him.
"And I'm pretty sure I'll get the rest of my twenty thousand dollars back soon," he said. "At least, nearly all the cash."
Mrs. Kimball went to the city to prepare for her trip to Bermuda, and it was a few days later, when some of the recent excitement had worn off, that Cora began to feel a sense of loneliness stealing over her. Her mother seldom went away from home.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed as she sat in the library trying to be interested in a book. "I wish something—"
Out on the driveway a triumphant "honk-honk!" drew her attention.