Belle Powers' Locket

Even her own indulgent and all-excusing mother could hardly overlook such a thing as this.

She ceased her loud cries and tried to choke back the sobs, but in vain did she wipe her eyes again and again: the tears gathered and rolled down her cheeks as fast as she dried them away; and presently Miss Ashton, who had heard her cries, came running upstairs, followed by Belle, to see what was the matter.

But the moment she saw them, Mabel turned sullen, pouted out her lips, and would not speak; nor could Nanette give any explanation of the cause of the commotion she had made. And Miss Ashton, much displeased at this new disturbance, bade the nurse put on Mabel's things and take her home at once.

Mabel was glad enough to obey, and she suffered Nanette to lead her home as quietly as a lamb, though she could not help a tear and a sigh now and then; and Nanette wondered much what secret trouble should have brought about this distress.

Nor was Mabel's mamma more successful in discovering the cause, when she noticed the traces of tears and observed the child's evident unhappiness. Mabel would not speak, or confess what she had done; and she shrank from her mother's caresses and coaxings, and hung around in sullen, miserable silence, waiting till Belle should come home grieved to the heart, as she knew she would be, by the loss of her much-prized locket.

XI.

BELLE'S GRIEF

And meanwhile how was it with little Belle?

Daphne went for her young mistress at the appointed hour, and as soon as the music-lesson was finished took her upstairs to make her ready.

"An' whar's yer locket, honey?" she asked, immediately missing the ornament from about the child's neck.

"In my desk: it did come to a danger, Daphne. I broke the chain and had to put it away. I'm going to bring it, and give it to you to carry home very carefully, so it won't be lost."

"And how did it come broke, dear?" questioned the old woman.

"The chain caught on Miss Ashton's chair and just came right in two," said Belle, refraining from blaming her cousin, upon whom she knew Daphne looked with such an unfavorable eye.

And away she ran into the school-room, Daphne following, and opened her desk.

"Why!" she exclaimed, seeing the locket was not where she had left it; and then hastily fell to turning her books about and looking beneath them.

"What is it, dear heart? Whar am it gone?" said Daphne, seeing no locket, and observing the disturbance of her little charge.

"I don't know; I left it here, – right here in this corner. Oh! Daffy, I know I did; and I never touched it again. Miss Ashton told me not, not till I went home; and I did mind her, oh! I did; but it isn't there. Oh! Daffy, you look, quick. Oh! my locket, mamma's own locket!"

Daphne turned over each book as hurriedly as Belle had done; then took them all out and shook them, peered within the empty desk, and swept her hand around it again and again; looked on the floor beneath: but all in vain. The locket was certainly not there, and Belle's face grew each moment more and more troubled.

"You's forgot, and took it out again, honey," said the old woman at last.

"Oh! I didn't: how could I forget? And I don't dis'bey Miss Ashton when she tells me don't do a thing. I don't, Daphne; and I couldn't forget about my mamma's locket;" and the poor little thing burst into tears. Such tears!

If any of you have ever lost something which to you was very dear and sacred, which you looked upon as a treasure past all price, and which you would not have exchanged for a hundred pretty things, each one of far more value, you may know how Belle felt at this unlooked-for and, to her, mysterious disappearance of her locket.

"Now, don't yer, honey-pot, – don't yer," said Daphne, vainly trying to soothe her: "'twill be foun', I reckon; but if you ain't took it out, some one else has, for sartain. It ain't walked out ob yer desk widout han's, for sartain sure."

"Oh! but, Daffy, who would take it? who would be so bad to me? They knew I loved it so. I don't b'lieve anybody could tease me so, when they knew it was my own dead mamma's locket," sobbed the little one.

"Um! I spec' it warn't for no teasin' it war done," said Daphne, half hesitating; then her resentment and anger at the supposed thief getting the better of her prudence, she added, "I did allus know Miss Mabel wor a bad one; but I didn't tink she so fur trabelled on de broad road as to take to stealin', – and de property ob her own kin too."

The word "stealing" silenced Belle, and checked her tears and cries for a moment or two.

"Stealing!" she repeated; "Mabel wouldn't steal, Daffy. Oh, that would be too dreadful! She must know better than that. She couldn't steal my locket."

"Dunno," said Daphne, dryly: "'pears uncommon like it. Who you s'pose is de tief den, Miss Belle?"

"But we don't have thiefs in our school, Daphne," said the little girl: "we wouldn't do such a thing, and Miss Ashton would never 'low it."

"Dey don't ginerally ask no leave 'bout dere comin's an' goin's," said Daphne: "if dey did, I specs der'd be less of 'em. You 'pend upon it, Miss Belle, dat ar locket's been stealed; an' I can put my finger on who took it right straight off."

"But," persisted Belle, whose distress was still for the time overcome by her horror at Daphne's suggestion, "I don't b'lieve any one would do such a thing; and, Daphne," raising her small head with a little dignified air, and looking reprovingly at the old woman, "I don't b'lieve, either, that it is very proper for you to call Mabel a thief. Maybe she took it to show to the jeweller man, but I know she couldn't steal it. But, oh dear! oh dear! I wonder if I will ever have it back again, my own, own mamma's locket;" and the sense of her loss coming over her with new force, she laid her head down upon her desk and cried aloud.

For the second time the sounds of distress called Miss Ashton to see what the trouble was; and they brought also the older girls from Mrs. Ashton's room, for their recess was not yet quite over. They all crowded about Belle, asking what was the matter, and trying to soothe her; for Belle was a great favorite and pet in the school, partly because she was motherless, – poor little one! – which gave teachers and scholars all a tender feeling toward her, partly because she had many taking and pretty ways of her own, which made her very attractive to every one who knew her.

In her uncertainty and distress the child could not make plain the cause of her trouble; and Daphne took upon herself the task of explanation, glad, if the truth were known, of the chance. Nor was she backward in expressing her own views of the matter, and in boldly asserting that the locket had been stolen, and she knew by whom.

But at this, Belle roused herself and interrupted her nurse.

"No, no," she said, shaking her head as she looked up with face all drowned in tears, and hardly able to speak for sobbing, – "no, no, Miss Ashton, Daphne must be mistaken. Mabel never would do it, – never!"

Now in spite of all her own declarations to the contrary, the fact was that Daphne's repeated accusations, and the recollection of Mabel's threats that she would "have the locket somehow," had caused a doubt to enter little Belle's mind as to the possibility and probability of Mabel being the "thief" Daphne called her; but mindful of the "love-charity" she was determined to feel for her cousin, – the charity which "believeth all things, hopeth all things," – she tried to put this doubt from her, and to think that some one else was the guilty person, or that the locket had only been taken to tease her. And she was not willing that others should join in Daphne's suspicions and believe that Mabel could do such a thing.

But Miss Ashton herself had too much reason to fear that Daphne's idea was, in part at least, correct. Enough had come to her ears and passed before her eyes, to make her believe that Mabel, in her extreme wilfulness, would not hesitate at any means of gaining her point, especially in the matter of the locket. She did not, it is true, feel sure that Mabel intended to keep the locket; but she thought she had probably taken it against her cousin's will, for purposes of her own; and this was hardly less dishonest than if she had, according to Daphne, stolen it outright.

Miss Ashton was very much disturbed. Mabel was proving such a source of trouble, such a firebrand in her little school, which had until now gone on in so much peace and harmony, that she had felt for some days as if it were scarcely best to keep her; still for many reasons she did not wish to ask her mother to remove her.

She thought it better for Mabel to be thrown more with other children than she had hitherto been; and her hope of doing her some good could not be put away readily; and also she shrank from offending and grieving the child's relatives, especially Mr. Powers, who had been a good friend to her mother and herself.

But if Mabel was a child of so little principle as to do a thing like this, it was best to send her away at once, she thought; and there seemed too much reason to fear that it was so.

However, she said nothing of all this to Belle, and when the old colored woman began again, gently stopped her, saying, —

"That will do, Daphne: we will not say any more about this. Belle, my dear, open your desk and let us search again."

Of course the desk was searched in vain, and not only the desk, but the whole school-room; Miss Ashton faintly hoping that Belle might accidentally have pulled the locket out and dropped it on the floor.

Meanwhile the bell had rung to call the older girls back to their class; and Mrs. Ashton, hearing the story from them, came also to Belle to make some inquiries. This was a serious matter, the disappearance of a valuable thing from the desk of one of her little scholars, and needed to be thoroughly sifted. But as soon as she appeared, Belle was seized with that unfortunate dread of the elder lady which possessed all the little girls; and she thought what would become of Mabel if Mrs. Ashton, too, believed her to be a "thief." Visions of squads of policemen, prisons and chains, danced before her mind's eye; and her imagination, almost as quick and fertile as Maggie Bradford's, pictured her cousin dragged away by Mrs. Ashton's orders, while the rest of the family were plunged in the deepest grief and disgrace.

So it was but little satisfaction that Mrs. Ashton gained from her, in reply to her questions. Not so Daphne, however; finding that her young lady gave such short and low answers as could scarcely be understood, she once more poured forth her opinions till again ordered to stop.

However, there was one opinion in which all were forced to agree; namely, that the locket was certainly gone. Belle's sobs were quieted at last, save when a long, heavy sigh struggled up now and then; but her face wore a piteous, grieved look which it went to Miss Ashton's heart to see. With her own hands, she put on the child's hat and sacque, petting her tenderly and assuring her that she would leave no means untried to discover her lost treasure; and then Belle went home with her nurse.

Daphne stalked with her charge at once to Mrs. Walton's room; and, forgetting her usual good manners, threw open the door without knocking, and standing upon the threshold proclaimed, —

"Miss Walton, Miss Belle's locket am clean gone, chain an' all; an' de Lord will sure foller wid His judgment on dem what's robbed a moderless chile."

Her words were addressed to Mrs. Walton; but her eyes were fastened on Mabel, who shrank from both look and words, knowing full well that Daphne suspected her of being the guilty one.

Mrs. Walton held out her hand kindly to Belle.

"Come here, darling," she said, "and tell me all about it. Your locket gone? How is that?"