In a flash the truth had come to her.
Mike, not poor Ah Lon, was the thief. She tingled all over with remorseful shame as she crept home with the locket in her hand.
"Oh, and we thought you had stolen it, Ah Lon dear!" Jinty confessed, with wild weeping; but Ah Lon was placidly smoothing the precious little picture. It was enough for her that it had come back. "Grandpapa must know; he must be told!" went on Jinty, determined not to spare herself.
When the professor heard the whole story he was very quiet indeed. But a few days after he went up to London on a little visit, and when he returned he called Jinty into the study.
"This," he said, opening a case, "will perhaps make up to the friendless little stranger for your unjust suspicions!" He handed Jinty a pearl-edged locket with a painting of a Chinese lady's head. "Chinese faces are so similar that it may serve as a remembrance of her own mother. And this, Jinty dearling, will keep alive in your memory one of our Lord's behests!" From another case came a dainty silver bangle inside of which Jinty read, with misty eyes, the engraved words: Judge not!
But already their meaning was engraved on her heart; and—as time won Ah Lon's shy affections—she and the little Chinese stranger grew to be as true sisters under the roof of Old Studley.
Rembrandt's Sister
A Noble Life Recalled
BY