e, it was to frighten me; all of the girls told me
not to leave it there. But I--I cannot make them give it back, and papa
is so particular about this jewel that I'm afraid to go home. Won't
you tell them it's no joke, and see that I get it again. I won't be so
careless another time."

Hardly believing his eyes, hardly believing his ears,--she was so
perfectly the spoiled child detected in a fault--he looked sternly about
upon the girls and bade them end the jest and produce the gems at once.

But not one of them spoke, and not one of them moved; only his daughter
grew pale until the roses seemed a mockery, and the steady stare of her
large eyes was almost too much for him to bear.

The anguish of this gave asperity to his manner, and in a strange,
hoarse tone he loudly cried:

"One of you did this. Which? If it was you, Alicia, speak. I am in no
mood for nonsense. I want to know whose foot traversed the balcony and
whose hand abstracted these jewels."

A continued silence, deepening into painful embarrassment for all.
Mr. Driscoll eyed them in ill-concealed anguish, then turning to Miss
Strange was still further thrown off his balance by seeing her pretty
head droop and her gaze fall in confusion.

"Oh! it's easy enough to tell whose foot traversed the balcony," she
murmured. "It left this behind." And drawing forward her hand, she
held out to view a small gold-coloured slipper. "I found it outside my
window," she explained. "I hoped I should not have to show it."

A gasp of uncontrollable feeling from the surrounding group of girls,
then absolute stillness.

"I fail to recognize it," observed Mr. Driscoll, taking it in his hand.
"Whose slipper is this?" he asked in a manner not to be gainsaid.

Still no reply, then as he continued to eye the girls one after another
a voice--the last he expected to hear--spoke and his daughter cried:

"It is mine. But it was not I who walked in it down the balcony."

"Alicia!"

A month's apprehension was in that cry. The silence, the pent-up emotion
brooding in the air was intolerable. A fresh young laugh broke it.

"Oh," exclaimed a roguish voice, "I knew that you were all in it! But
the especial one who wore the slipper and grabbed the pendant cannot
hope to hide herself. Her finger-tips will give her away."

Amazement on every face and a convulsive movement in one half-hidden
hand.

"You see," the airy little being went on, in her light way, "I have some
awfully fu