Cynthia brought her the chair, and the old lady seated herself in front of the case.
"I do declare if there ain't the very eyes I sewed in with my own hands—black beads they are, Cynthy—and the hair I embroidered with fine black yarn! And the petticoats, Cynthy! The flannel one's feather-stitched. I could tell you what that doll has on to her very stockings. To think that something I made so innocently, away off in Wayborough, for our little Janet, now belongs to the United States government! Well, well, it's a great honor; almost too good to be true. But the little satchel, Cynthy—the satchel that hung at her side with the gold in it, where's that?"
That indeed was missing.
"Well, well, we won't say anything. I'm sure government deserves it for all the trouble it takes, opening all those letters and bundles."
But her family thought differently, and wheels within wheels were set in motion by which the fifty dollars in gold were recovered—the famous fifty dollars, the loss of which had so affected the fortunes of Neal Gordon.
It seemed that in her agitation, after the death of Silas Green, Miss Betsey, though she stamped it generously, had put no address at all on the package, and having sent it off by the half-blind Mr. Peters, the deficiency had not been discovered.
He had taken it to Tottenham post-office, where both he and Miss Trinkett were unknown, and hurried away, leaving the valuable package to the mercies of government.
"And to think that government takes care of things and gives them back to you when you are as careless as all that!" said Miss Betsey. The doll she would not receive.
"No, no," she said; "let it stay where it is. I'll make another for Janet some day. It's an honor I never expected, to have one of my rag dolls set up in a glass case in a public building in the city of Washington for thousands and thousands of the American people to gaze at! Indeed, I want to know!"
The two weeks in Washington finally came to an end, and the Franklins bade farewell to the beautiful city with its parks and circles, its magnificent avenues, its public buildings, and towering Monument.