"

"We missed the mug, but--O Caroline, the pin-cushion! Do you suppose
Miss Butterworth means the pin-cushion?"

I started. Did she refer to the one I had picked up from the floor and
placed on a side-table?

"What about the pin-cushion?" I asked.

"O nothing, but we did not know what to make of its being on the table.
You see, we had a little pin-cushion shaped like a tomato which always
hung at the side of our bureau. It was tied to one of the brackets and
was never taken off; Caroline having a fancy for it because it kept her
favorite black pins out of the reach of the neighbor's children when
they came here. Well, this cushion, this sacred cushion which none of us
dared touch, was found by us on a little table by the door, with the
ribbon hanging from it by which it had been tied to the bureau. Some one
had pulled it off, and very roughly too, for the ribbon was all ragged
and torn. But there is nothing in a little thing like that to interest
you, is there, Miss Butterworth?"

"No," said I, not relating my part in the affair; "not if our neighbor's
children were the marauders."

"But none of them came in for days before we left."

"Are there pins in the cushion?"

"When we found it, do you mean? No."

I did not remember seeing any, but one cannot always trust to one's
memory.

"But you had left pins in it?"

"Possibly, I don't remember. Why should I remember such a thing as
that?"

I thought to myself, "I would know whether I left pins on my pin-cushion
or not," but every one is not as methodical as I am, more's the pity.

"Have you anywhere about you a pin like those you keep on that cushion?"
I inquired of Caroline.

She felt at her belt and neck and shook her head.

"I may have upstairs," she replied.

"Then get me one." But before she could start, I pulled her back. "Did
either of you sleep in that room last night?"

"No, we were going to," answered Isabella, "but afterwards Caroline took
a freak to sleep in one of the rooms on the third floor. She said she
wanted to get away from the parlors as far as possible."

"Then I should like a peep at the one overhead."

The wrenching of the pin-cushion from its place had given me an idea.

They looked at me wistfully as they turned to mount the stairs, but I
did not enlighten them further. What would an idea be worth shared by
them!

Their father undoubtedly lay in the back room, for they moved very
softly around the head of the stairs, but