eshman was quite the happiest result of the
whole affair. It didn't take Betty long to identify the amethyst pendant
as the one article which the Blunderbuss had said she couldn't return;
and she was at once relieved and disappointed, on going over the stolen
jewelry with Miss Ferris, to find that Nita's pin was certainly missing.
Of course that left room for the possibility that the Blunderbuss had
not taken it, and the next thing to do was to consult Georgia and make
sure. Betty waited until after dinner that evening for a chance to see
her alone and then, unable to stand the suspense any longer, broke
abruptly away from her own friends and detached Georgia from a group of
tired and disconsolate freshmen sympathizing over examinations.

"Let's go for a walk all by ourselves," she said.

"No fair, running off to talk secrets," Madeline called after the pair.

"Curiosity killed a cat," Betty chanted gaily back at her, leading the
way to the back campus.

"It's awfully nice of you to ask me to come, when so many people want
you," said Georgia shyly.

"Oh, no, it's not," protested Betty. "I shall have a whole week with the
others after you've gone. Besides, there's something I especially want
to talk to you about. Let's go and sit on the bank below the
observatory."

They found comfortable seats among the gnarled roots of an old elm,
where they could look across at Paradise and down on a bed of gorgeous
rhododendrons, over which great moths, more marvelously colored than
the flowers, flitted lazily in the twilight. Then Betty plunged into
the thick of things.

"You remember the pendant that you wore on your chain the night of the
Glee Club concert. You said it was a present. Would you mind telling me
who gave it to you? I have good reason for asking."

Georgia flushed a little and made the answer that Betty had hoped for.
"The senior Miss Harrison gave it to me last Christmas. I know you and
Madeline don't like her, and I don't like her a bit better. But what can
you do, Betty, when some one takes a fancy to you? You can't snub her
just because she happens to be stupid and unpopular--not if you're a
'Merry Heart,' anyway."

"No," said Betty, "you can't. But if you don't like her you won't feel
so bad about what I've got to tell you."

Georgia listened to the story aghast. "But I'm not so dreadfully
surprised," she said. "It explains so many things. She started to take
Caroline's class-pin one day in our room.