'I'd give anything, I'd almost give myself, to find it.'—c. iv. p. 48.
'Isn't it dreadful to have lost it? I'd give anything, I'd almost give myself, to find it.'
That's the queer sort of way Anne talks sometimes when she's very tremendously in earnest.
Flossy looked rather surprised.
'What a funny girl you are,' she said. 'I don't think your mother would agree to give you, even to get back her brooch! But, do you know, there's something running in my head about losings and findings that I've been hearing. What can it be? Oh yes; it was some of our cousins yesterday— Ludo,' and she called her brother, the twin one, 'Ludo, do you remember what the little Nearns were telling us, about something they'd found?'
'It wasn't they that found it. It was lying on their doorstep the day of the Drawing-room; they'd had a party, and it must have dropped off some lady's dress. But their mother had sent to all the ladies that had been there, and it wasn't theirs.'
Anne was listening so eagerly that her eyes almost looked as if they were going to jump out of her head.
'What is it like—the brooch, I mean—didn't you say it was a brooch?' she asked in a panting sort of voice.
Ludovic Barry stared at her.
'It's because they've lost one,' said Flossy quickly, 'at least their mother has, and they would give anything to find it. It's a—I forget the word—a family treasure, you know.'