Tess lifted the cover. Dot crowded nearer to look in. The shadows of the little girls heads at first hid the bottom of the basket. Then both saw something gleaming dully there. Tess and Dot cried out in unison; but it was the latters brown hand that darted into the basket and brought forth the bracelet.
A silver bracelet! Tess gasped.
Oh, look at it! cried Dot. Did you ever ? Do you spose its real silver, Tess?
Of course it is, replied her sister, taking the circlet in her own hand. How pretty! Its all engraved with fret-work
Hey! ejaculated Sammy coming closer. Whats that?
Oh, Sammy! A silver bracelet all fretted, too, exclaimed the highly excited Dot.
Huh! Whats that? Fretted? When my mothers fretted shes Say! how can a silver bracelet be cross, I want to know?
Oh, Sammy, Tess suddenly ejaculated, these Gypsy women will be cross enough when they miss this bracelet!
Oh! Oh! wailed Dot. Maybe theyll come back and want to take it and the pretty basket, Tess. Lets run and hide em!
CHAPTER II A PROFOUND MYSTERY
How can you say such a thing, Dottie Kenway? she demanded sternly. Of course we cannot keep the bracelet. And that old Gypsy lady said we were honest, too. She could see we were. And, then, what would Ruthie say?
Their older sisters opinion was always the standard for the other Corner House girls. And that might well be, for Ruth Kenway had been mentor and guide to her sisters ever since Dot, at least, could remember. Their mother had died so long ago that Tess but faintly remembered her.
The Kenways had lived in a very moderately priced tenement in Bloomsburg when Mr. Howbridge (now their guardian) had searched for and found them, bringing them with Aunt Sarah Maltby to the old Corner House in Milton. In the first volume of this series, The Corner House Girls, these matters are fully explained.
The six succeeding volumes relate in detail the adventures of the four sisters and their friends and some most remarkable adventures have they had at school, under canvas, at the seashore, as important characters in a school play, solving the mystery of a long-lost fortune, on an automobile tour through the country, and playing a winning part in the fortunes of Luke and Cecile Shepard in the volume called The Corner House Girls Growing Up.
In The Corner House Girls Snowbound, the eighth book of the series, the Kenways and a number of their young friends went into the North Woods with their guardian to spend the Christmas Holidays. Eventually they rescued the twin Birdsall children,
who likewise had come under the care of the elderly lawyer who had so long been the Kenway sisters good friend.
During the early weeks of the summer, just previous to the opening of our present story, the Corner House girls had enjoyed a delightful trip on a houseboat in the neighboring waters. The events of this trip are related in The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat. During this outing there was more than one exciting incident. But the most exciting of all was the unexpected appearance of Neale ONeils father, long believed lost in Alaska.
Mr. ONeils return to the States could only be for a brief period, for his mining interests called him back to Nome. His son, however, no longer mourned him as lost, and naturally (though this desire he kept secret from Agnes) the boy hoped, when his school days were over, to join his father in that far Northland.
There was really no thought in the mind of the littlest Corner House girl to take that which did not belong to her. Most children believe implicitly in findings-keepings, and it seemed to Dot Kenway that as they had bought the green and yellow basket in good faith of the two Gypsy women, everything it contained should belong to them.
This, too, was Sammy Pinkneys idea of the matter. Sammy considered himself very worldly wise.
Say! whats the matter with you, Tess Kenway? Of course that bracelet is yours if you want it. Whos going to stop you from keeping it, I want to know?
But but it must belong to one of those Gypsy ladies, gasped Tess. The old lady asked us if we were honest. Of course we are!
Pshaw! If they miss it, theyll be back after that silver thing fast enough.
But, Sammy, suppose they dont know the bracelet fell into this basket?
Then you and Dot are that much in, was the prompt rejoinder of their boy friend. You bought the basket and all that was in it. They couldnt claim the air in that basket, could they? Well, then! how could they lay claim to anything else in the basket?
Such logic seemed unanswerable to Dots mind. But Tess shook a doubtful head. She had a feeling that they ought to run after the Gypsies to return to them at once the bracelet. Only, neither she nor Dot was dressed properly to run through Miltons best residential streets after the Romany people. As for Sammy
Happily, so Tess thought, she did not have to decide the matter. Musically an automobile horn sounded its warning and the children ran out to welcome the two older Corner House girls and Neale ONeil, who acted as their chauffeur on this particular trip.