e
decreed. "Go downstairs, girls, all of you. Nobody is to come into the
studio again to-night."

"Rona had my pendant in her hand all the time," grumbled Stephanie to
Beth as she obeyed the mistress's orders. "She dropped it as she fell.
I've put it back safely, though, and I don't mean to let anybody
interfere with it. I shall complain to Miss Bowes if it's touched
again."

CHAPTER XVII

A Storm-cloud

Rona woke up next morning without even a headache, in Miss Lodge's
opinion "justifying the prompt measures taken", but according to the
girls, "showing there had been nothing the matter with her to make such
a fuss about". Breakfast proceeded as usual, and afterwards came the
short interval before nine-o'clock school. Now on this day the
contributions to the Art exhibition were to be packed up and dispatched
by a special carrier, and Stephanie, as a budding metalworker, ran
upstairs to the studio to take one last peep at her exhibit. She flew
down again with white face and burning eyes.

"Girls!" she cried shakily. "Girls! Somebody's taken my pendant! It's
gone!"

"Why, nonsense, Stephie; it can't be gone! It was there all right last
night."

"It's not there now. Ulyth's has been put in its place, and mine's
vanished. Come and see."

There was an instant stampede for the studio.

"It's probably on the bench," said Doris. "Some people are such bad
lookers. I expect we shall find it directly."

"You can't find a thing that isn't there," retorted Stephanie with
warmth.

Doris considered herself an excellent looker, and, in company with a
dozen others, she searched the studio. Willing hands turned everything
over, hunted under tables, on shelves, and among shavings, but not a
sign of the pendant could they find.

"Are you sure this one isn't yours?" asked Ruth, coming back to the
exhibits.

"Certain! I know my own work. This is Ulyth's; and there's the mistake
she made that disqualified it."

"Yours was put back last night?"

"I saw it safe myself, after Rona'd been juggling with it. Where is
Rona? I believe she's at the bottom of this."

"She's in the garden."

"Then she must be fetched."

"What's the matter? What are you making a bother about?" cried Rona, as
an excited detachment of girls stopped her game of tennis and asked her
a dozen questions at once. "What have I done with Stephanie's pendant?
Why, I've done nothing with it, of course."

"But you must have hidden it somewhere."