"What have you to say for yourself, Theodora?" asked Miss Middleton, in an impressive voice.
There was no reply. Miss Thomasine looked unhappy, and covered her face with her handkerchief, and Miss Melissa again made use of her salts. Miss Dorcas began to knit nervously, but Miss Joanna stared straight at Theodora through her gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Have you nothing to say, Theodora?" asked Miss Middleton, after a pause.
"No, Aunt Adaline."
"You have not told her why she has been called, sister!" exclaimed Miss Thomasine. "Perhaps she knows nothing about it."
"Is that probable after what you told us?" asked Miss Middleton, austerely. "However, I will humor you. Theodora, you have seen the Middleton bowl?"
Involuntarily Teddy's eyes turned toward the now empty Chinese table, and then were dropped again.
"Yes, it stood there," continued Miss Middleton, "and at ten o'clock this morning it was still there, for I saw it myself. At a quarter past eleven, when your aunt Joanna came down to dust the parlor, the Middleton bowl was gone! Not a trace of it left but this small piece of china to show that it had ever been there."
Theodora glanced up again, and saw a triangular bit of china, an inch or two long, which her aunt held in her hand and then laid upon the table.
"You know the value of that bowl. You have been told that your great-grandfather brought it home, and that there is said to be but one like it in the world. Now that other is the only one. The Middleton bowl is no more."