dn't it?" said Mary as she
watched Molly patting the ground smooth around the one she had just
planted in the fairy garden. "I'd like to take some pebbles and some
starfish, too. Reggie would be so pleased with them; he would be quite
vexed if I brought him none after telling him about them."

"How often you say vexed, don't you?" remarked Molly. "We hardly ever
say vexed."

"What do you say?"

"Oh, I don't know; we say mad and angry and provoked."

"But then I really mean vexed," returned Mary after a moment's thought.
"I don't mean anything else," and Molly had nothing more to say.

It was after they had finished the lobster, the egg sandwiches, the
buttered rolls and gingersnaps and were delicately eating some wild
strawberries the children had gathered, that Molly made a sudden
resolution to plunge Mary into a confession.

"If you lent some one a diamond pin and she were to lose it would you
be very--very vexed, Aunt Ada?" she asked, after a hasty glance at Mary.

"If I possessed a diamond pin I might be, but as I haven't such a thing
I couldn't be vexed," her aunt said.

Mary jumped to her feet, startled out of her usual reserve.

"But, Aunt Ada, you did have one!"

"When, please? You must nave dreamed it, Mary, dear."

"But you did have. Oh, do you mean you know it is lost?"

It was Miss Ada's turn to look surprised. "What do you mean, child?"
she said knitting her brows. "I never had a diamond pin to my
knowledge. I always liked diamond rings, and I have two or three of
those, but a pin I never possessed. What are you talking about?"

Mary laced and unlaced her fingers nervously. "I mean the one you lent
me to wear the night we dressed up for the party at Green Island. Was
it some other person's, then? Oh, Aunt Ada, had some one lent it to
you, for if they did"--she faltered, "I lost it coming home." She sank
down at Miss Ada's feet on the mossy ground and buried her face in her
aunt's lap.

Miss Ada put a kind hand on her head. "And all this time you have been
distressing yourself about it, you poor little kitten? I ought to have
told you, but you were so pleased in thinking it was real I thought I
would let it go, and I have not thought of it since. Why, dear, it was
of no value at all, a mere trumpery little rhinestone that cost only a
couple of dollars."

Mary lifted her tearful eyes. "Oh, I am so relieved," she said. "I've
searched and searched for it ever since."

"Yes,