r. Dunlee, looking at the watch
closely. It seemed very much battered.

"Dreadfully smashed up, isn't it, sir? I can't tell you how sorry I am."

Mr. Dunlee shook it, and held it to his ear.

"Oh, it won't go," said Mrs. McQuilken. "The inside seems worse off, if
anything, than the outside. 'Twill have to have new works."

"Very likely. But it is so precious to me, madam, that even in this
condition I'm glad to get it back again. Pray, where has it been?"

"Right here in this room. Didn't you understand me to confess to
stealing it? Why, you're shaking your head as if you doubted my word."

They were all laughing now, and the old lady's eyes twinkled with fun.

"Well, if I didn't steal it myself, one of my family did, so it amounts
to the same thing. Come out here, you unprincipled girl, and beg the
gentleman's pardon," she added, kneeling and dragging forth from under
the bed a beautiful bird.

It was her own magpie, chattering and scolding.

"Now tell the gentleman who stole his watch? Speak up loud and clear!"

The bird flapped her wings, and cawed out very crossly:--

"Mag! Mag! Mag!"

"Hear her! Hear that!" cried her mistress. "So you did steal it,
Mag--I'm glad to hear you tell the truth for once in your life."

"Did she take the watch? Did she really and truly?" cried the children
in chorus.

"To be sure she did, the bad girl. She has done such things before, and
I have always found her out; but this time she was too sly for me. She
went and put it in my mending-basket; and who would have thought of
looking for it there?"

Mag tipped her head to one side saucily, and kept muttering to herself.

"Well, I happened to go to the basket this afternoon and take up a pair
of stockings to mend. They felt amazingly heavy. There was a hard wad in
them, and I wondered what it could be. I put in my hand and pulled out
the watch. Yes, 'twas tucked right into the stockings."

"I wonder we didn't any of us mistrust her at the time of it," said Mr.
Templeton; "those magpies are dreadful thieves."

"Well, I suppose you thought 'twas my business to take care of her, and
it was. I'm ashamed of myself," said Mrs. McQuilken. "I was looking out
of the window when the boys shied over that roof, but my mind wasn't on
jewelry then. All I thought of was to run and call for help."

Yes, and it was her screams which had aroused the whole neighborhood.

"And at that very time my Mag was roaming at large. No doubt she sa