em again before they had
recovered from their surprise at his strange manner; and now he held
something in his hand which he waved aloft gleefully.

Belle began to understand that all her anxiety had been needless.

"What does this mean?" asked Allan, as Morgan put into his hand a little
worn case.

The children crowded around him as he opened it and disclosed the
long-lost, much talked of sapphire ring. In his delight the cabinet-maker
almost danced a jig, and continued to repeat, "I'm a magician."

"It's found; it's found!" cried Rosalind.

"And I knew it," said Belle.

"Hello!" exclaimed Jack. "Was this your secret? Did Morgan tell you?"

Belle tried to explain her discovery, but so great was the excitement
nobody would listen. It was really beyond belief that Patricia's ring was
actually in their hands. It was some time before they quieted down
sufficiently to hear Morgan's story.

He had begun work on the spinet several days ago, he said, and upon
removing the top had noticed something wedged in under the strings, which
upon investigation he found to be the case containing the ring.

"But where is the other ring?" Rosalind asked.

The magician laughed and said that was another story, and he told how the
evening before the real ring was found, Crisscross had been seized with a
fit of unusual playfulness, and jumping up on the chest, above which the
ring hung, had begun to move it to and fro with his paw, presently
knocking it off and sending it rolling across the floor. He darted after
it under tables and chairs but apparently never found it; nor could the
magician, although he searched carefully.

"So the mystery is not ended yet. We do not know what became of the magic
ring, nor how the real ring came to be in the spinet," Allan remarked.

"It is exactly like a sure enough fairy tale," added Belle; and then she
whispered her part of the story, turning her back to the magician, for
fear he might see what she was talking about.

"And how about the detective? Did you think he was coming to arrest
Morgan?" asked Maurice.

Belle looked a little shamefaced. "I didn't know," she said.

Mr. Whittredge wanted to hear about the detective, and was much amused at
her description of the taking of his picture.

Rosalind as she listened held the ring in her hand--Patricia's ring. She
had thought a great deal about Patricia, and this seemed to bring her near
and make her more real--the young girl who had looked