a
ray of light, grew confused and tried to cover it up by asking, "A pin?
Did she have a pin on? I suppose she did. Girls generally wear pins of
some sort."

Berenice shrugged her shoulders. "Yes; she had a pin on, Erma Thomas,
and you observed it as well as I did. You know as well as I do whose pin
it is."

"You are very much mistaken. I know nothing at all about it. I have
nothing to do with other people's jewelry."

"You have with this. At least you spent hours in helping to look for it.
It is that odd one which Helen Loraine wore and which so mysteriously
disappeared."

"Any disappearance is a mystery. If I lose a collar button, it is a
mystery to me. If it was not, I would know where it was. The things we
don't know are always mysterious. If we know, then they are as plain as
day."

"It seems strange it should disappear for three months and then Hester
Alden have it on, especially when Helen Loraine is away."

"That is the very time you should wear other people's jewelry and
clothes. When I am home I always wear my mother's best silk stockings
and rustling petticoats when I know she's down in the city shopping. Of
course I always ask her--when she comes back--and she never refuses me
permission. She always says the same thing: 'Well, since you have them
on--'"

Erma's attempts to lead the conversation away from Hester and the pin
was without results. Berenice clung to the subject with a tenacity which
would have been admirable had the thing been worth while.

"I understand you, Erma. You think just as I do, but you are afraid to
say so. I suspected from the first where the pin went; but of course I
did not say so."

"Do you not think it a wise course to follow now--to say nothing?"

"It is very different now. Before, I was merely suspicious. One may not
make statements in mere suspicion. Now I have proofs."

"Proofs? Because Hester Alden has the pin on and Helen is away?"

"Let us walk along the edge of the river," said Mellie. She, too, meant
to change the conversation. "I love the river when it is icebound. I
should like to cross if I thought it were safe. But I fancy we had
better not. We have had several days of thaw and that always rots the
ice, and rotten ice is far more dangerous than thin ice."

"I intend to speak my mind," said Berenice. "Mellie and you are very
much afraid you will express yourselves. You think as I do about the
matter, but you will not say so. I cannot see the differenc