"Aunt Lillias, I wonder if the necklace will never be found."
"So do I," said Mrs. Vincent. "I really cannot understand where it can have gone. We have searched so thoroughly that even if Fixie had put it somewhere we would have found it. And, if possibly, he had taken it away with him by mistake, Martha would have seen it."
But that was all that was said.
A day or two later Rosy came flying into the schoolroom in great excitement. Miss Pinkerton was there at the time, for it was the middle of morning lessons, and she had sent Rosy upstairs to fetch a book she had left in the nursery by mistake. "Miss Pink, Bee!" she continued, "our dresses have come from London. I'm sure it must be them. Just as I passed the backstair door I heard James calling to somebody about a case that was to be taken upstairs, and I peeped over the banisters, and there was a large white wood box, and I saw the carter's man standing waiting to be paid. Do let me go and ask about them, Miss Pink."
"No, Rosy, not just now," said Miss Pink. She spoke more firmly than she used to do now, for I think she had learnt a lesson, and Rosy was beginning to understand that when Miss Pink said a thing she meant it to be done. Rosy muttered something in a grumbling tone, and sat down to her lessons.
"You are always so ill-natured," she half whispered to Bee. "If you had asked too she would have let us go, but you always want to seem better than any one else."
"No, I don't," said Bee, smiling. "I want dreadfully to see the dresses. We'll ask your mother to let us see them together this afternoon."
Rosy looked at her with surprise. Lately Beata had never answered her cross speeches like this, but had looked either ready to cry, or had told her she was very unkind or very naughty, which had not mended matters!
Rosy was right. The white wood box did contain the dresses, and though Mrs. Vincent was busy that day, as she and Aunt Edith were going a long drive to spend the afternoon and evening with friends at some distance, she understood the little girls' eagerness to see them, and had the box undone and the costumes fully exhibited to please them. They were certainly very pretty, for though the material they were made of was only cotton, they had been copied exactly from an old picture Lady Esther had sent on purpose. The only difference between them was that one of the quilted under skirts was sky blue to suit Rosy's bright complexion and fair hair, and the other was a very pretty shade of rose colour, which, went better with Bee's dark hair and paler face.
The children stood entranced, admiring them.