emed necessary to take off the
clothes hooks. "I guess I had best put all the little things in this
flat basket," she decided, opening up a small hand-woven affair, such
as girls use for embroidery cases.

Attacking the Philippine work box once more, Mary took all the movable
compartments that she could locate by shaking and rattling, and at last
found one in the very bottom of the box; released by such a snap
spring, it surely must have originally been a trick box.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "Just look here!" and, holding the small tray
up to the astonished gaze of the girls, they beheld a glittering array
of jewels.

"Oh, how beautiful," called out a voice in which all three were blended.

"These must have been Loved One's!" said Mary, in an awed voice, and
her companions, too astonished to speak, simply stared at the
glittering treasures.

There were several pins with beautiful sparkling stones, a number of
rings, lockets; in fact the collection seemed to include a supply of
fine jewelry, such as a woman of means and social prominence might
covet.

"However will you carry them?" asked Madaline, first to recover from
the surprise.

"I don't know," Mary replied, still dazed and overcome. To her the
discovery meant more than a collection of jewelry; it meant that her
mother must have been a wealthy and prominent woman. This fact,
however, Mary always understood, but in her hands now were seemingly
new proofs.

"Let us attend to the orchids to-day, Mary," suggested Grace, "while
you finish your packing. Come on, Madie, get the small cans."

"All right," Cleo agreed. "I'll help Mary find something to carry her
treasures in, and also help her finish packing. We will then likely
all be finished about the same time. What a lot of things we have to
look over when we get home! Mary, I am sure some of those lockets will
have pictures in them," and all the while she was talking Cleo was
running here and there, or hither and thither, as Jennie would have
said, in a hurry to finish the tasks.

"I know where I can get a good strong bag," Mary said, "but I haven't
been upstairs since we went away. This big bungalow, having the
sleeping rooms on the first floor, always seemed complete without
upstairs."

"I'm not afraid to go up," Cleo volunteered. "I'll take Shep. Where
is he?"

At the sound of his name Shep sprang forward, carrying in his teeth the
remnants of a yellow handkerchief he had torn almost to