ed a peculiar yellow light. We were sorry that we knew the value
of them."

"Sorry! I should think you would have been delighted. I can imagine
nothing to be sorry for in finding that what you thought was a pretty
little stone, was really worth a great deal of money."

"Because if it had been worthless, someone would never have been tempted
as she was. My Aunt Harriet on one of her visits South years before, had
found a little colored girl who was mistreated. She brought her North
and gave her a home. She fed and clothed her and trained her to be an
excellent servant. When she was able to work, Aunt Harriet paid her
wages. She learned the value of Aunt Harriet's pins and rings. She
disappeared and the jewels with her. There were a whole lot of
complications which I cannot go into detail about. But it changed Aunt
Harriet's whole life. I remember Rosa so well. She was a beautiful girl.
She did not look like a colored woman. She was scarcely darker than I
am, and she had the most beautiful eyes and hands."

"And nothing has been heard of her?" Erma was eager to know. She could
have sat there all day to listen and would have forgone both meals and
lessons.

"Nothing. It was surely strange how such a thing could have happened and
not be found sometime. It is not an easy matter for a woman to disappear
and all traces of her be lost."

Hester had not been present during this conversation. As Helen finished,
her roommate came down the corridor and joined the two girls.

"Helen has been telling me the most thrilling tales from her family
history. It is worth writing to make a story. Don't you know something,
Hester? Didn't your family do some wonderful things?"

"No," replied Hester. "The Aldens settled down in one place and remained
there. As Aunt Debby says, they fulfilled their duty to their church and
to their neighbors, but nothing happened in their lives which was not
prosaic."

"But your mother's family," persisted Erma. "Surely there must be
something romantic on her side of the tree."

Hester smiled at the words. There was a little touch of sadness in her
smile. She had never spoken to the girls of her people. They knew that
she was an Alden. The name was well known in the central part of the
State. They knew that an aunt had reared her. That was all the knowledge
that came to them. When other girls talked together of what their
parents and grandparents had done as children and repeated the old-time
stories,