emiserious
admission that she almost hoped the police would fail to recover the
plunder. For while many items of the stolen property, of course, were
priceless, things not to be duplicated, things (with a pensive sigh)
inexpressibly endeared to one through associations, she couldn't deny
(more brightly again) it would be rather a lark to get all that money
and go shopping to replenish her treasure-chests from the most famous
jewellers of the three capitals.

This aspect of the case made Mrs. Artemas frankly envious. "How
perfectly ripping!" she declared. "I'm almost tempted to hire a
burglar of my own!"

"And then," Lyttleton observed profoundly, "if one isn't in too great
a hurry--there's no telling--one may run across the lost things in
odd corners and buy them back for a song or so. Anne Warridge did,
when they looted her Southampton place, some time ago. Remember
the year 'motor-car pirates' terrorized Long Island? Well, long after
everything was settled and the insurance people had paid up, Anne
unearthed several of her best pieces in the shops of bogus Parisian
antiquaries, and bought them back at bargain rates."

"It sounds like a sin to me," Savage commented.

"But I call you all to witness that, if anything like that happens in
this family, I hereby declare in on the profits. It's worth something,
this trip to town--and nobody sorry to see me go!"

After luncheon the party dispersed without formality. Mrs. Artemas
vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him
off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared
forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was
snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally
being elected to fourth place as one whose defective education must be
promptly remedied, lest the roof fall in.

She found it very pleasant, playing on a breeze-fanned veranda that
overlooked the terrace and harbour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil.
A very little practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that she
had thought completely atrophied by long disuse, and she was aided
besides by a strong infusion in her mentality of that mysterious
faculty we call card-sense. Before the end of the second rubber
she was playing a game that won the outspoken approval of Trego and
Mrs. Gosnold, and certainly compared well with Miss Pride's, in spite
of the undying infatuation for auction professed by dear Abigail's one
true