THE LOST TREASURE
"Diamonds," whispered Betty to Norma Guerin, who seemed depressed. "She
wears three diamond rings and one sapphire and a square-cut emerald. And
her wrist-watch is platinum set with diamonds."
Mrs. Eustice gazed at the soft little hand she held for a few moments,
then released it. She said nothing.
"Ah, your mother wrote me of you," was the principal's greeting to the
Littell girls. "You look like her, Louise. And Bobby is much like her
father as I remember him."
"This is Betty Gordon," said the loyal Bobby, indicating her chum.
"Mother wrote about her, too, didn't she?"
"Indeed she did," assented Mrs. Eustice warmly. "I must have a special
talk with Betty soon, for she has an ambitious program before her. And
here are Libbie and Frances from the state I remember so affectionately
from girlhood visits there."
But it was Norma and Alice Guerin, sensitive Norma and shy Alice, who
were welcomed most cordially after all.
"So you are Elsie Guerin's daughters!" said the principal, putting an
arm around Norma and holding her hand out to Alice. "My own dear mother
taught your mother when she was a little girl with braids like yours.
And your dear grandmother used to give the most wonderful parties.
People talk about them to this day. It was at her Rose Ball I first met
my husband. You must go up the north road some day and see the old
Macklin house."
Norma and Alice fairly glowed as they went back to their rooms with the
other girls. Ada Nansen had heard, and she was regarding them with
evident respect.
Norma and Alice might have been uneasy had they heard Ada's comment when
she and Ruth were once more in their own rooms.
"They must have money," argued Ada, "though I never saw such ordinary
clothes. Giving balls and parties in the lavish Southern style costs,
let me tell you. Probably they have some fine family jewels in that
shabby trunk."
"I'll tell you what I think," said Ruth Gladys wisely. "I think the money
is all used up. Probably they're here as charity pupils for old
friendship's sake."
This speculation was duly stored up in Ada Nansen's mind to be brought
out when needed.
After dinner Miss Anderson played for them to dance in the broad hall,
but every one was tired from train journeys, and at nine o'clock they
voluntarily sought their rooms.
"Get into a kimono and brush your hair in here," hospitably suggested
Betty, and Bobby seconded her by flinging the suitcases under the beds.
All of the rooms were fitted with pretty day-beds so that a cover quickly
transformed them into couches and the bedrooms into sitting rooms.
Four gay-colored kimono-wrapped figures came pattering in presently and
curled up comfortably on the beds. Norma and Alice were the last to
arrive, and when they did come they mystified their friends by prancing
in silently and waltzing gaily about the room.
"Oh, girls!" they chortled when they had tired of this performance, "what
do you think?"
"We couldn't help hearing," said Norma deprecatingly.
"Laura Bennett called us in," declared Alice.
"Don't sing a duet," commanded Bobby sternly. "What are you talking
about? One at a time. You tell, Norma."
"Laura Bennett called us into her room," obediently recited Norma. "Miss
Lacey was talking to Ada and Ruth. You could hear every word without
listening--that is without eavesdropping--you know what I mean. Mrs.
Eustice must have spoken to Miss Lacey, because she told the girls they
would have to send all the trunks home except one apiece. Ada must put
all her jewelry in the school safe and at the Christmas holidays she is
to take it home and leave it there. Both of them have to wear their hair
down or in a knot--you know they have it waved now and done up just like
my mother's. And Miss Lacey is to go over their clothes to-morrow and
tell 'em what they can keep!"
"I'm glad some one has some sense!" was Bobby's terse comment.
Something in Norma's face told Betty that she would like to speak to her
alone, so half an hour later when the girls had dispersed for the night,
she made a bent nail file an excuse to go to the Guerins' room.
"I was hoping you'd come, Betty," said Norma gratefully. "We have to put
out the lights at ten, don't we? I'll try to talk fast. You see, Alice
and I want to tell you something."
A fleecy old-fashioned shawl lay across the bed and Norma flung this
about Betty's shoulders.
"Alice's kimono is flannel and so is mine," she explained in answer to
the protest. "You never met Grandma Macklin, did you, Betty?"
"No-o, I'm sure I never did," responded Betty thoughtfully. "Does she
live with you?"
"Yes. But while you were at the Peabodys she was visiting her half-sister
in Georgia," explained Norma. "She is mother's mother, you know."
"What was it Mrs. Eustice said about her?" questioned Betty with
interest. "Did she live near here? Was that when your mother went to
this school?"
"It was a day school then, you know," put in the laconic Alice.
"Yes, and grandma lived in a perfectly wonderful big house," said Norma.
"It must be fully five miles from here. Uncle Goliath, an old colored
man, used to drive her over every day and call for her in the afternoon.
Mother has always been determined Alice and I should graduate from
Shadyside."
"Well then, it's lovely she is to have her wish," commented Betty
brightly.
"Oh, goodness, I don't see that we're ever going to have four years,"
confessed Norma. "If you knew what they've given up at home to send us
for this term! And though we wouldn't say anything, mother and grandma
worked so hard to get us ready, Alice and I are positively ashamed of our
clothes. You see, Betty, I think when you're poor, you ought to go where
you'll meet other poor girls. Alice and I ought to have entered the
Glenside high school, I think. But when I said something like that to dad
he said it would break mother's heart. But if she knew how hard it was to
be poor and to have to rub elbows with girls who have everything--"
"I don't think you ought to feel that way," urged Betty. "You have
something that no amount of money could buy for you, and no lack can take
away--birth and breeding. And the training your mother wants you to have
is worth sacrificing other things for. Ever since I heard Mrs. Eustice
talk I feel that I know what makes her school really successful."
A soft tap fell on the door.
"Lights go off in ten minutes, girls," said Miss Lacey pleasantly.
"Do you know, Betty," confessed Norma hurriedly, "dad has lost quite a
lot of money lately. He's such a dear he never can bear to press
payment of a bill and half the county owes him. And a friend got him to
invest what he did have in some silly stock that never amounted to a
hill of beans, as the farmers say. So it's no wonder the Macklin
fortune worries mother whenever she thinks of it; a family like ours
could use money so easily."
"Most families are like that," said Betty, with a flash of Uncle Dick's
humor. "I didn't like to ask, Norma, but your grandmother must have
been wealthy."
"She was," confirmed Norma. "Not fabulously so, of course. But even in
those days when lavish hospitality was common Grandma Macklin was famous
for the way she ran the estate. She was left a widow when a very young
woman, and mother was her only child. Her husband didn't believe women
knew very much about money, and he left his fortune mostly in bonds and
jewels--the most magnificent diamonds in three counties, grandma says
hers were. And she had a rope of emeralds and two strings of exquisitely
matched pearls. Besides, there were rose topazes and lovely cameos and
oh, goodness, I couldn't repeat the list; Alice and I have been brought
up on the story.
"Well, about the time mother had finished school, Grandma Macklin came to
the end of her bank account. Several mortgages had been paid her in gold,
and she kept this money with the jewelry and a lot of solid silver in a
little safe in her room. Foolish, of course, but she says others did it
in those days, too. She meant to take the gold and some of the diamonds
to her lawyer and get a check which would take her and mother around the
world on a luxurious cruise. And the day before she had the appointment
with Mr. Davies--"
A soft blackness settled down over the girls like a blanket. The
electric lights had gone out!
"Move closer, and I'll finish," whispered Norma.
Betty snuggled up between the two, and shivered a little with excitement.
"The day before she was to drive to Edentown," repeated Norma, "a band of
Indians from the reservation in the next state came through on their
annual tramping trip and walked in on poor little grandma as she sat at
her mahogany secretary turning over her jewels and counting her beautiful
shining gold. Every darkey on the place fled in terror, and those
rascally Indians simply scooped up everything in sight and locked grandma
and mother in the room!"
"Couldn't any one stop them?" demanded Betty eagerly. "Surely a band of
Indians could have been easily traced. Didn't any one try?"
"Oh, they tried," admitted Norma. "That's the maddening part. Suppose I
told you, Betty, that I know where grandma's inheritance is this minute?"