"Rosy's beads," he said.
"Yes, Rosy's necklace that was lost. And you didn't know where it was gone when Martha asked you—when your mother wrote a letter about it."
As she spoke, she drew their two little chairs to what had always been their favourite corner, near a window, which was low enough for them to look out into the pretty garden.
"Don't sit there," said Fixie, "I don't like there."
"Why not? Don't you remember we were sitting here the last afternoon we were in the nursery—before you went away. You liked it then, when I told you stories about the beads, before they were lost."
"Before zem was lost," said Fixie, his face again taking the troubled, puzzled look; "I didn't know it was zem—I mean it was somefin else of Rosy's that was lost—lace for her neck, that I'd never seen."
Bee's heart began to beat faster with a strange hope. She had seen Fixie's face looking troubled, and she remembered Martha saying how her questioning about the necklace had upset him, and it seemed almost cruel to go on talking about it. But a feeling had come over her that there was something to find out, and now it grew stronger and stronger.
"Lace for Rosy's neck," she repeated, "no, Fixie, you must be mistaken. Lace for her neck—" and then a sudden idea struck her,—"can you mean a necklace? Don't you know that a necklace means beads?"
Fixie stared at her for a moment, growing very red. Then the redness finished up, like a thundercloud breaking into rain, by his bursting into tears, and hiding his face in Bee's lap.
"I didn't know, I didn't know," he cried, "I thought it was some lace that Martha meant. I didn't mean to tell a' untrue, Bee. I didn't like Martha asking me, 'cos it made me think of the beads I'd lost, and I thought p'raps I'd get them up again when I came home, but I can't. I've poked and poked, and I think the mouses have eatened zem."