“What do you mean, Uncle Dick?”

“I want you to keep account for your own satisfaction.  I want you to know at the end of the month where your money has gone to.  It is the best training in the world for a girl, as well as a boy, to know just what she has done with the money that has passed through her hands.  And in this case I am sure in time that it will give you a just comprehension of money’s value.

“If we do not recover the locket, why, in time, we will look about for another pretty trinket——­”

“No, Uncle Dick,” Betty said seriously.  “I loved that locket.  I should have been more careful of it.  I hope it will be found and returned to me.  I do!  I do!  But I don’t want you to give me another.”

“Why not?” he asked, yet giving her quite an understanding look.

“I guess you know, Uncle Dick,” she sighed.  “I don’t really deserve it.  And it wouldn’t be that locket that you gave me for Christmas, you see.”

“Well, my dear——­”

“Wait, dear Uncle Dick!  I want to say something more,” said the girl, hugging him tightly again.  “If you give me a certain sum of money to spend for myself every month I am going to save out of it until I have enough to buy a locket exactly like that one I lost—­If it isn’t found, I mean.”

“Ah!”

“You approve, Uncle Dick?”

“Most assuredly.  That would be following out my suggestion of learning to take care of money in the fullest sense, my dear.”

“Then,” said Betty, bouncing happily on his knee, “that is what I am going to try to do.  But I do hope my locket will be found!”

This serious conference was broken up at this point by the arrival of the telegram Uncle Dick had been expecting from Mountain Camp.  Mrs. Jonathan Canary had signed it herself and it was to the effect that the young friends of Mr. Richard Gordon would be as welcome as that gentleman himself.

Bob immediately saddled a horse and galloped to the Derbys and the Tuckers to carry the news.  Final plans were made for departure the next morning and in spite of a rather threatening change in the weather the party left Fairfields on time and in high spirits for upper New York State.

A few flakes of snow had begun fluttering down as the train pulled out of Washington; and as it raced across the Maryland fields and through the hills which grace that State the snow blew faster and faster and thicker and thicker.  But even in midwinter snow storms do not much obstruct traffic so far south, and the gay party from Fairfields had no suspicion that it was being borne into any peril or trouble.  What was a little snow which scarcely, at first, caught upon the brown fields?

They had engaged two whole sections for the young folks and an extra place for Uncle Dick.  The latter did not interfere at all with the fun and frolic of his charges.  He was—­he should have been—­used by now to the ridiculous antics of the Tucker twins and the overflowing spirits of the rest of the octette.  Bachelor as he was, Mr. Richard Gordon considered himself pretty well acquainted with young folks of their age.