She stopped abruptly, for Bess Thornton was facing her, the tears standing in her eyes, and she held in her hand the broken chain.
"Oh, gran'," she cried, "don't scold. I didn't mean any harm. I just wanted to wear it a little while. But it's—it's gone."
And she told the story of the loss of the coin.
Granny Thornton stared at the girl in amazement. Then she burst forth in querulous tones, seemingly as though she were addressing the girl and soliloquizing at the same time.
"It's gone!" she gasped. "Gone again—and sure there's a fate in it. Plenty of chains like that to be had, but never another coin of the kind seen about these parts. Oh, but you've gone and done it. Don't you know that coin meant luck for you, girl? You might have gone to the big house to live some day; but you'll never go now. You've lost the luck. You're bad—bad. There's no making you mind. Give me the chain."
Her voice grew more harsh and angry. "Let the coin go," she said. "You've lost it, and you can suffer for it. You'll not go out of this house again to-day."
Puzzled at her strange words, and hurt at the scolding, Bess Thornton sat sullenly. "I'll get it back to-morrow, if I can't to-day," she said. "I'm going to dive for it."
"You keep away from the water, do you hear?" replied Granny Thornton; but, a half-hour later, she seemed to have changed her mind. "Go and get it, if you can," she said, shortly. "Change that dress—and don't get drowned."
But Little Tim, in the mean time, had not been idle. Hastily throwing off his clothing, he dived again and again into the deep pool, swimming to the bottom and groping about there. He brought up handfuls of sticks and small stones, and the debris of the water's bed. A dozen times he was unsuccessful—and then, at last, as he clung to the bank and opened his fist for the water to thin the mud and ooze that he had clutched, there lay the golden coin, bright and shining in his palm.
He scrambled out, had his clothes on in a twinkling, dropped the coin into one of his pockets, and started off on a run down the road.