“Oh, Nyoda, how splendid!” cried Sahwah, with sparkling eyes.  “Oh, dear, why can’t things like that happen now?  Life in America is so tame and uneventful, compared to what it used to be in the early days.”  And she fell to musing discontentedly upon the vast advantage of frontier life over her own humdrum, modern existence.

Then Veronica began to play on her violin, and Sahwah’s discontented thoughts took wing, and she went floating out on a magic sea of music, and sat with closed eyes drinking in those wild, seraphic melodies that flowed from Veronica’s enchanted bow until it seemed as if it could be no mere violin making that music, it was the Angel Israel, playing on his own heart strings.  As Sahwah sat and listened there suddenly came over her a great feeling of sadness, and unrest, a sense of the vastness and seriousness of life, and she felt desperately unhappy.  She had never felt so before.  All her life she had been happy-go-lucky, and scatterbrained, and life had stretched out before her as one vast picnic, without a single solemn note in it.  And now, while she listened to Veronica’s playing she was suddenly plunged into the depths of world sorrow!  She was so sad she didn’t know what to do, tears gathered in her eyes and stole down her cheeks; she didn’t know what she was sad about, but she was so sorrowful that her heart was breaking!

The sound of applause brought her to herself with a start.  Veronica had stopped playing, and the girls were expressing their enraptured appreciation.  Sahwah’s sadness left her and she applauded wildly, then sighed regretfully when Veronica put the violin back into its case and announced it was time to go to bed.

After they had gone upstairs and were preparing to retire, Hinpoha suddenly exclaimed in a dismayed tone:  “My locket!  It’s gone!”

“Are you sure you didn’t leave it at home?” asked Nyoda.

“I know I wore it,” replied Hinpoha, “I remember having it on in the train.  My hair caught in it and I had to take it off to get it loose.  Then I put it on again, and I never thought of it since.”

“Was it the one your mother gave you, with her picture in?” asked Migwan, sympathetically.

“No,” replied Hinpoha.  “It was the Roman gold one Aunt Phoebe gave me for Christmas last year and I had Sahwah’s picture in it, that little head she had taken when she graduated.”

Search was made through all of Hinpoha’s belongings, in the hope that it might have dropped into some of her numerous frills, but it could not be found.

“I suppose I lost it in the scramble when we got out of the train,” Hinpoha sighed regretfully, “and that’s the end of it.  Oh, dear, will I ever learn not to be so careless with my things?” And thoroughly impatient with herself, Hinpoha marched off to bed.

CHAPTER VI

A SURPRISE IN STORE FOR HILLSDALE