The girl flushed again, guiltily.
“To tell the truth, it belonged to Stella,” she confessed, reluctantly, “and it was such an exquisite little thing that I took a notion to have it. I offered to buy it of her, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it, saying she ‘prized it too highly as the gift of a friend.’ But I was bound to have it, and went to her room one day and took it, and had it made into a ring, for it was in the shape of a pin. Of course I intended to return it sometime, but I meant her to understand that a girl in her dependent position had no business to refuse so simple a request. The initials A. S., with two strawberry leaves, their stems crossed, are engraved on it, and I knew, when he described it to me, that it was ‘his friend’—or rather himself, as it appears now—who had given it to her. I heartily wish now that I had let it alone. But just listen to this.”
Miss Richards took the pieces of the note, which she had held crumpled in her hand, and putting them together, read the following:
“Oct. 10th, 188—.
“Miss Richards:—Doubtless before you receive this you will have learned that Archibald Sherbrooke—whom I represented to you as my friend, for reasons which you cannot now fail to understand—and Lord Carrol are one and the same person. Under the former name, which was the only one which belonged to me at that time, I became acquainted with Miss Gladstone on shipboard, and was so pleased with her that, at parting, I exchanged souvenirs with her, giving her a little cameo which I prized very highly. It is the same one which you have had made into a ring. When I met Miss Gladstone a short time since she remarked that she had ‘lost’ my gift; last night she told me how she had ‘lost’ it, and I would respectfully ask you to send it to the inclosed address, that I may return it to the owner, should I be so happy as to find her.
“Very respectfully,
“Archibald Sherbrooke, Bart., and
Lord Carrol, of Carrolton.”
“Why on earth can’t you let other folks’ things alone, Josephine?” cried Mrs. Richards, when her daughter had finished reading this formal note, and feeling almost faint from mortification upon learning of this disgraceful episode in her life. “I’m sure,” she added, reproachfully, “you have trinkets enough without taking the only thing a poor girl had.”
“Isn’t your commiseration somewhat ill-timed, mamma, for the ‘poor girl,’ now that she is not here to reap the benefit of it?” sneered the dutiful young lady. “I don’t care; it is an elegant trifle, anyhow, and I’ve half a mind to keep it, in spite of his lordship’s demand,” she added, defiantly, as she held up her hand, on which the ring gleamed, and regarded it covetously.