"But, Mother, what is it?" Mollie demanded again. "Has Aunt Elvira died or has Paul caught the mumps, or----"
"Of course not, Mollie! How silly of you," her mother broke in, impatiently. "Aunt Elvira will probably live another twenty years. And as for Paul's having the mumps----"
"Then what is it? Have we been robbed?" Mollie's little foot tapped a sharp tattoo on the floor.
"That is just what has happened to us," said Mrs. Billette, as the girls stared incredulously. "We've been robbed of some things that money never can replace. Oh-oh-oh, if I had only put it in a safer place! How could I have been such a fool! Oh! oh!" and Mrs. Billette, poor woman, was fast verging on another attack of hysteria.
Mollie put her arms about her mother soothingly. "There, there, Mother," she crooned. "It may turn out all right after all. But, remember, you haven't told us what is lost yet," she suggested, with a gentleness very unlike her former impatience. "I think it would make you feel much better to talk about it. Did you say it was the silver that had been stolen?"
"Yes, the silver tea service that has been in the family for over a hundred and twenty years." Mrs. Billette's French origin gleamed in her dark eyes as she added: "Oh, if we could only catch them! I'd like to make them suffer for this!"
From Mrs. Billette's rather disjointed story the girls gathered that not only the valuable tea service was missing, but also a number of smaller articles, such as knives and forks. Then there was a valuable jet necklace which Mrs. Billette had locked up with the silver for safe keeping.
The girls were stunned by this last calamity. They could think of one solution and one only, and that was--the gypsies.
As Betty took leave of the girls at her own door that noon, after vainly urging them to stay to lunch--they were too impatient to get home and spread the news to stop for anything, even lunch at Betty's--she heard the jangle of the telephone.
"Sorry you won't come in," she called. "I'll see you later, anyway!" and she flew upstairs to answer the insistent summons.
"Hello! . . . Oh, that you, Allen? . . . Yes, I've just come home from Mrs. Billette's. . . . She has lost a silver tea service and some other things. . . . What's that? . . . Yes, stolen. . . . Gone! . . . Are you sure? . . . Oh, now they will never get their things! . . . Yes, come over to-morrow and we can talk things over. . . . Don't be silly! . . . Yes, come early. . . . Good-bye."
