y worth.

"To my surprise and dismay I found that there were only eleven, when
there should have been twelve. I keep them there on a table so as to
show them to some of my kind lady friends, for I am particularly proud
of my collection, and Sarah had only that morning brightened them all
superbly until they glistened.

"So I called her up and asked her if she could remember counting the
spoons at the time she cleaned them. She assured me solemnly that the
entire twelve were in the open case when she placed them on the table
at my orders.

"It remained a puzzle to me for a whole week. I believed, of course,
that Sarah must have unconsciously mislaid a spoon, which would be
found sooner or later. At the same time I remembered the visit of that
lad, who had never been in my house before, and how he might have
glanced into the drawing-room through accident, and seeing my souvenir
spoons, been tempted to purloin one. But every time that terrible
thought flashed into my mind I indignantly refused to harbor it, I love
all boys so much.

"Then again today he came with more work turned in by Mrs. Ackerman,
who had for some reason of her own selected him as her messenger. I
actually forgot all my ugly suspicions in the charm of his manly
conversation, until some time after he had gone, again, at my
suggestion, letting himself out. I hurried into the drawing-room, and
with trembling fingers proceeded to count my spoons. There were but
ten of them left in the open box. Another had strangely vanished!"

Hugh almost gasped, he was so tremendously interested in this thrilling
recital.

"You are certain you did not make any mistake, Mrs. Pangborn?" he
asked, for want of something better to say.

"Please step into the other room and count them for yourself, Hugh,"
she quickly told him. "You can use the connecting door if you wish,
instead of passing around by way of the hall."

Hugh came back a minute later. His face was very grave.

"It is just as you told me, ma'am," he remarked, softly, at the same
time shaking his head, as though he could not bring himself to believe
it was as bad as the old lady suspected; that there must be some other
and reasonable explanation for the vanishing of the spoons; surely Owen
Dugdale could not be guilty of such a base theft!

"What can I believe, Hugh?" she almost wailed. "I do not walk in my
sleep, and that colored girl is as honest as your own mother, I feel
positive. Pleas