re, poor things. A little mosaic
brooch set in silver, a mother-of-pearl with steel border, and a
tortoise-shell one in the shape of a crescent; these made up her
possessions.

"I meant," she added naively, "I meant to have put them all in this box
as I broke them, but I left the coral one, and the turquoise one, and the
bird in the drawer by mistake."

"_As you broke them?_" repeated grandmother. "How many are broken then?"

"All," said Molly. "I mean the pins are."

It was quite true. There lay the six brooches--brooches indeed no
longer--for not a pin was there to boast of among them!

"Six pinless brooches!" said grandmother drily, taking them up one after
another. "Six pinless brooches--the property of one careless little girl.
Little girls are changed from the days when I was young! I shall take
these six brooches to be mended at once, Molly, but what I shall do with
them when they are mended I cannot as yet say."

She put them all in the little box from which three of them had been
taken, and with it in her hand went quietly out of the room. Molly, by
this time almost in tears, remained behind for a moment to whisper to
Sylvia,

"Is grandmother dreadfully angry, do you think, Sylvia? I am so
frightened, I wish I wasn't going out with her."

"Then you should not have been so horribly careless. I never knew any one
so careless," said Sylvia, in rather a Job's comforter tone of voice.
"Of course you must tell grandmother how sorry you are, and how ashamed
of yourself, and ask her to forgive you."

"Grandmother dear," said Molly, her irrepressible spirits rising again
when she found herself out in the pleasant fresh air, sitting opposite
grandmother in the carriage, bowling along so smoothly--grandmother
having made no further allusion to the unfortunate brooches--"Grandmother
dear, I am so sorry and so ashamed of myself. Will you please forgive
me?"

"And what then, my dear?" said grandmother.

"I will try to be careful; indeed I will. I will tell you how it is
I break them so, grandmother dear. I am always in such a hurry, and
brooches _are_ so provoking sometimes. They won't go in, and I give
them a push, and then they just squock across in a moment."

"They just _what_?" said grandmother.

"Squock across, grandmother dear," said Molly serenely. "It's a word of
my own. I have a good many words of my own like that. But I won't say
them if you'd rather not. I've got a plan in my head--it's just come