thankful she was to get it, while maybe it doesn't belong to
her at all. No," said Mrs. Staples, "let her come looking for it if she
lost it."

"Oh!" murmured Ida Bellethorne doubtfully.

"Perhaps she will never guess she dropped it here."

"That's no skin off your nose," declared the vulgar shopwoman. "You've no
rights in this thing, anyway. What's found on the floor of my shop is just
as much mine as what's on the counter or in the trays behind the counter.
I know my rights. Until whoever lost this thing comes in and proves
property, it's mine."

"Oh, Mrs. Staples!" cried her employee. "Is that the law in this country?
It doesn't seem honest."

"Humph! It's honest enough for me. And who are you, I'd like to know, a
greenhorn fresh from the old country, trying to tell me what's honest and
what ain't? If that girl comes back----"

"Yes, Mrs. Staples?"

"You sell her that other blouse if you want to, or anything else out of
the shop. But you keep your mouth shut about this locket unless she asks
for it. Understand? I won't have no tattle-tales about me; and if you
don't learn when to keep your mouth open and when to keep it shut, I'll
have no use at all for you in my shop. Remember that now!"

CHAPTER II

THE FRUITS OF TANTALUS

Betty Gordon had glanced hastily at her wrist watch as she went out of the
little store. It was very near the minute appointed for her to meet Carter
at the square. And she had forgotten to ask that girl, Ida Bellethorne
(such an Englishy name!), how to find her rendezvous with the Littells'
chauffeur.

She hesitated, tempted to run back. Had she done so she would have been in
time to see Ida pick up the little locket that Uncle Dick had given Betty
that very Christmas and which she carried in her bag because it seemed the
safest place to treasure it while she was visiting. Her trunk was at
Shadyside.

So it is that the very strangest threads of romance are woven in this
world. And Betty Gordon had found before this that her life, at least, was
patterned in a very wonderful way. Since she had been left an orphan and
had found her only living relative, Mr. Richard Gordon, her father's
brother, such a really delightful guardian the girl had been to so many
places and her adventures had been so exciting that her head was
sometimes quite in a whirl when she tried to think of all the happenings.

Uncle Dick's contracts with certain oil promotion companies made it
impossible as