“I am sure, as you say, that you did not mean to be careless,” Mr. Richard Gordon said gently.  It was hard for him to be strict with Betty; but he knew her impulsiveness sometimes led her into a reckless path.  “But mark you, Betty:  The value of that locket should have, in itself, made you particularly careful of it.”

“I—­I valued it more because you gave it to me, Uncle Dick,” she sobbed.

“And yet that did not make you particularly careful,” the gentleman reminded her.  “The main trouble with you, Betty, is that you have no very clear appreciation of the value of money.”

“Oh, Uncle Dick!” and she looked at him with trembling chin and tears welling into her eyes.

“And why should you?” he added, laughing more lightly and patting her hand.  “You have never been obliged to earn money.  Think back to the time you were with the Peabodys.  The money my lawyer sent you for your own use just burned holes in your pinafore pockets, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t wear pinafores, Uncle Dick,” Betty said soberly.  “Girls don’t nowadays.”

“No, I see they don’t,” he rejoined, smiling broadly again.  “But they did in my day.  However, in whatever pocket you put that money as you got it, the hole was figuratively burned, wasn’t it?”

“We—­ell, it went mostly for food.  Mr. Peabody was such a miser!  And—­and——­”

“And so when you wanted to come away from Bramble Farm you actually had to borrow money,” went on Uncle Dick.  “Of course, you were fortunate enough finally to get the lawyer’s check and pay your debts.  But the fact remains that you seem unable to keep money.”

“Oh, Uncle Dick!”

“Now,” continued her guardian still soberly, “a miser like Mr. Peabody for instance is a very unpleasant person.  But a spendthrift often does even more harm in the world than a miser.  I don’t want my Betty-girl to be a spendthrift.”

“Oh, Uncle Dick!”

“The loss of your pretty locket, my dear, has come because of that trait in your character which ignores a proper appreciation of the value of money and what can be bought with it.  Now, I can buy you another locket——­”

“No, no, Uncle Dick!  I don’t deserve it,” she said with her face hidden against his shoulder as she sat in his lap.

“That is true, my dear.  I don’t really think you do deserve another—­not right at once.  And, anyway, we will advertise for the locket in the newspapers and may recover it in that way.  So we will postpone the purchase of any other piece of jewelry at present.

“What I have in my mind, however, and have had for some time, is the reorganization of your financial affairs,” and now he smiled broadly as she raised her head to look at him.  “I think of putting you on a monthly allowance of pocket money and asking you to keep a fairly exact account of your expenditures.  Not an account to show me.  I don’t want you to feel as though you were being watched.”