ou ridiculous boy," said my sisters. "Have you seen it?"

"Seen it!" said I; "I've only seen it every day since I was born, and
yet I remember it well." I went whistling away, and they began to rush
around again for that shawl.

I felt pale under my whistle. Five hundred dollars! who'd 'a thought it?
Down in the smugglers' cave! Goodness gracious! No wonder it looked just
the thing. No wonder we all cottoned to that shawl from the start.

"I always told you something would happen to it," said mamma to Aunt
Pam. "You flung it around like an old rag."

"That was the comfort of it," said Aunt Pam. "It couldn't be hurt. It
could be worn in all weathers--to a wedding or a funeral, to church or
to a clam-bake. It was always in the fashion, and everybody knew what it
was worth."

"Except me," I said, under my breath.

"Oh, my beautiful shawl!" said Aunt Pam, beginning all at once to feel
the full shock of her loss. The tears rolled out of her dear old eyes,
and my sisters began to snivel, as they always did.

Mamma said it must be looked into, and for a moment I was scared. I
thought of the smugglers' cave.

"What must be looked into?" I said.

"Why, the loss of the shawl," said mamma. "It must have been stolen out
of the house."

Our up-stairs girl was passing through the room when ma said that, and
she turned red and pale.

"Did you notice Maggie?" mamma said, when the door was shut.

"Oh, mamma!" we all cried out, for we thought the world of Maggie. I
couldn't help wondering how it was she was so red and flustered, while I
was as cool as a cucumber. Aunt Pam declared she wouldn't have Maggie's
feelings hurt for the world; and I said she was innocent, in a deep low
solemn voice, but nobody paid any attention to me. Then I stopped to
think before I went on. How could I betray my comrades and the
whereabouts of the cave? I remembered the last piece I spoke in school,
and how I hollered out the words,

"O for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!"

Could I be that traitor? No indeed--not much! Yet here was a dreadful
row in the house, and the only way to mend matters was to get that shawl
again as soon as possible. I resolved to get it that very night, and
when I listened to an advertisement that Aunt Pam had written out for
the paper, I saw my way clear. She said no questions would be asked if