'An heirloom,' I said. 'Yes, that's the worst of it. But, Anne, don't look so wild about it,' I went on, laughingly. 'What is the brooch like, that your cousins have found? Is it diamonds?' I went on to the Barrys.
'I think so,' said Ludo. 'It's some kind of jewels. But the Nearns are quite small children; they wouldn't know, and I don't suppose they've seen it. They'd only heard their mother and the servants talking about it. We can easily find out, though. I'll run round there—they live in our Square—when we go home.'
'No, Ludo, I'm afraid you can't, for mamma heard this morning that——'
At that very moment we were interrupted by another dance beginning. And when it was over it was time for us all to go. Flossy Barry didn't finish her sentence. I saw her saying something to her brother, and then she came up to us.
'I'll find out about the found brooch,' she said. 'I won't forget. And if it's the least likely to be yours, I'll ask mamma to write to your mamma. That'll be the best.'
'Thank you,' I said. She was a nice, kind little girl, and I was sure she wouldn't forget. But Anne looked disappointed.
'I don't see why she tried to stop her brother going about it at once,' she said.
'Perhaps there was some reason,' I said. 'And Anne, if I were you, I wouldn't say anything about it to mums. Raising her hopes, you know, very likely for nothing, for it's such a chance that it's our brooch—ours has been advertised so, these people would have seen the notices.'
Anne did not answer.
Flossy had a reason, and a good one, for what she said to her brother. But she had been told not to speak of what her mother had heard, as Mrs. Barry said it was not certain. The 'it' was that these little cousins of theirs had got the whooping-cough, or rather Lady Nearn, their mother, was afraid they had, and so she had told the Barrys they mustn't come to the house.