“I have,” replied Jessie, “but I never mentioned it because I’m so careless and it did seem to be my own fault. I lost five dollars last week out of my purse. I left it on the window sill in the gym. and forgot about it. When I came back later the purse was there, but the money was gone.”
“How horrid!” cried Molly, her soul revolting in disgust at anything dishonest.
“To tell you the truth I have not been able to find my gold beads for nearly two weeks,” put in Judy. “I haven’t seen them since—” she paused and flushed, “since the night of our play. I remember leaving them on my dressing table that morning.”
Molly and Nance exchanged glances, recalling the mysterious visitor to their room that night.
Several of the other girls had missed small sums of money and jewelry which they had not thought of mentioning at the time.
“But how on earth was this managed?” demanded Jessie, pointing dramatically to the broken china pig.
“I suspect,” replied Molly, “that this is not the real Martin Luther. When I bought him there were several others just like him on the shelf at the store. Whoever did this must have bought another Martin and the stage money at the same time. They have a lot of it at the store, silver and greenbacks, too. I saw it myself when I bought Martin. They keep it for class plays, I suppose.”
There was a long discussion about what ought to be done. The housekeeper must be told, of course, next morning and a list of all missing articles made out, headed by Molly’s loss of almost fifteen dollars.
It was rather a tragic ending to the jolly hickory-nut cake party. Molly tried to laugh away her disappointment about her savings, but she could not disguise to herself what it actually meant.
“I’m afraid I can’t buy your dress, Judy,” she announced, when the company had disbanded. “I’ll mend up one of last year’s dresses. It will be all right. It’s a lesson to me not to place so much importance on clothes.”