ning was passed in an excited discussion
regarding the mysterious disappearance of the gold timepiece.

"I can't think any one can have stolen it," said Queen Mab. "How
should they have known about it? and, besides, if any one broke into
the house last night, how is it they didn't take anything else--that
little silver box, for instance?"

"It's stolen, right enough," said Raymond. "It couldn't have been Joe
Crouch, could it?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Jack decisively. "He wouldn't do a thing
like that. He stole some fruit once, but he's honest enough now."

"Could the servant have taken it?"

"Oh, no!" answered Queen Mab. "I could trust Jane with anything."

During the afternoon the weather cleared, but no one seemed inclined to
do anything; a feeling of gloom and uneasiness lay upon the whole
company.

Jack was sitting in a quiet corner reading, when his aunt called him.

"Oh, there you are! I wanted to speak to you alone just for a minute.
Helen told me about your quarrel with Raymond, and I want you to make
it up. He's going away to-night, and I shouldn't like you to part,
except as friends."

The boy frowned. "I don't want to be friends," he answered
impatiently. "He's played me some very shabby tricks, and I think the
less we see of him the better."

"Perhaps so; but I'm so sorry that you should have actually come to
blows, and that while you were staying here with me at Brenlands."

"I'm not sorry! I wish I'd hit him harder!"

"Oh, you 'ugly duckling!'" answered the lady, smiling, and running her
fingers through his crumpled hair. "You'll find out some day that
'punching heads,' as you call it, isn't the most satisfactory kind of
revenge. However, I don't expect you to believe it now, but I think
you'll do what I ask you. Go to Raymond, and say you're sorry you
forgot yourself so far as to strike him, and ask his pardon. There, I
don't think there is anything in that which need go against your
conscience, or that it is a request that any gentleman need be ashamed
to make."

Jack complied, but with a very bad grace. If the suggestion had come
from any one but Queen Mab, he would have scouted the idea from the
first.

He found Raymond swinging in a hammock under the trees.

"I say," he began awkwardly, "I'm sorry I hit you when we had that row.
Aunt Mabel wished me to tell you so."

"Hum! You'll be sorrier still before long. I suppose now you want to
'kiss and be friends'?"