people
read the time. Nay, be silent and do not let your face move lest I
should read it. Now let us see what it is that you have lost."

Then he turned to his confederates, as Thomas called them, and began to
ask them questions which need not be set out in detail. Was it an animal
that the Little Flower had lost? No, it was not an animal, the Spirits
told him that it was not. Was it an article of dress? No, they did not
think it was an article of dress, yet the Spirits seemed to suggest that
it had something to do with dress. Was it a shoe? Was it scissors? Was
it a comb? Was it a needle? No, but it was something that had to do with
needles. What had to do with needles? Thread. Was it thread? No, but
something that had to do with thread. Was it a silver shield which
pushed the needle that drew the thread?

Here Tabitha could contain herself no longer, but clapped her hands and
cried out delightedly:

"Yes, that's it. It's my thimble."

"Oh! very well," said Menzi, "but it is easy to discover what is lost
and hard to find it."

Then followed another long examination of the assessors or acolytes, or
witch-doctor's chorus, by which it was established at length that the
thimble had been lost three days before, when Tabitha was sitting on a
stone sewing, that she believed it had fallen into a crevice of rocks,
and so forth.

After this the chorus was silent and Menzi himself took up the game,
apparently asking questions of the sky and putting his ear to the ground
for an answer.

At length he announced: (1) That the thimble was not among the rocks;
(2) That it was not lost at all.

"But it is, it is, you silly old man," cried Tabitha excitedly. "I have
hunted everywhere, and I cried about it because I haven't got another,
and can't buy one here, and the needle hurts my finger."

Menzi contemplated her gravely as though he were looking her through and
through.

"It is _not_ lost, Little Flower. I see it; you have it now. Put your
hand into the pocket of your dress. What do you find there?"

"Nothing," said Tabitha. "That is, nothing except a hole."

"Feel at the bottom of your dress, there on the right. No, a little more
to the front. What do you feel there?"

"Something hard," said Tabitha.

"Take this knife and cut the lining of your dress where you feel the
hard thing. Ah! there is the silver shield which you have been carrying
about with you all these days."

The crowd murmured approval. Dorcas exclai