my taste. Here's the key of my
wardrobe. You will find the tin boxes which hold the jewels. You can
take them; only never let out a word to your stepfather. He doesn't
know I posses them--no one does."

"Thank you, mother," said Maggie in a low voice. "Will you lie down on
the sofa, mums? Oh, here's a nice new novel for you to read. I bought
it coming up in the train yesterday. You read and rest and feel quite
contented, and let me go to the bedroom to look at the jewels."

"Very well," said Mrs. Howland; "you can have them. I consider them of
little or no importance; only don't tell your stepfather."

"He is not that yet, mums."

"Well, well," said Mrs. Howland, "what does a fortnight matter? He'll
be your stepfather in a fortnight. Yes, take the key and go. I shall
be glad to rest on the sofa. You're in a much more reasonable frame of
mind to-day."

"Thank you, dear mother," said Maggie.

She entered the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her. She
held her mother's bunch of keys in her hand. First of all she unlocked
the wardrobe, and then, removing the tin boxes, laid them on the table
which stood at the foot of the bed. She took the precaution first,
however, to lock the bedroom door. Having done this, she seated
herself at the table, and, selecting the proper keys, unlocked the two
tin boxes. One of them contained the twelve famous bracelets which
Maggie had described to Molly and Isabel Tristram. She would keep her
word: she would give a bracelet to each girl. She recognized at once
the two which she considered suitable for the girls, and then examined
the others with minute care.

Her mother could not admire what was strange in pattern and dimmed by
neglect; but Maggie, with her wider knowledge, knew well that she
possessed great treasures, which, if possible, she would keep, but
which, if necessary, she could sell for sums of money which would
enable her to start in life according to her own ideas.

She put the twelve bracelets back into their case, and then, opening
the second tin box, took from it many quaint curios, the value of
which she had no means of ascertaining. There was a great deal of gold
and silver, and queer beaten-work in brass, and there were pendants
and long chains and brooches and queer ornaments of all kinds.

"Poor father!" thought the girl. She felt a lump in her throat--a
choking sensation, which seemed to make her mother's present conduct
all the more intolerable. How w