“Did she take the watch?  Did she really and truly?” cried the children in chorus.

“To be sure she did, the bad girl.  She has done such things before, and I have always found her out; but this time she was too sly for me.  She went and put it in my mending-basket; and who would have thought of looking for it there?”

Mag tipped her head to one side saucily, and kept muttering to herself.

“Well, I happened to go to the basket this afternoon and take up a pair of stockings to mend.  They felt amazingly heavy.  There was a hard wad in them, and I wondered what it could be.  I put in my hand and pulled out the watch.  Yes, ’twas tucked right into the stockings.”

“I wonder we didn’t any of us mistrust her at the time of it,” said Mr. Templeton; “those magpies are dreadful thieves.”

“Well, I suppose you thought ’twas my business to take care of her, and it was.  I’m ashamed of myself,” said Mrs. McQuilken.  “I was looking out of the window when the boys shied over that roof, but my mind wasn’t on jewelry then.  All I thought of was to run and call for help.”

Yes, and it was her screams which had aroused the whole neighborhood.

“And at that very time my Mag was roaming at large.  No doubt she saw the watch the moment it fell; and to use your expression, Mr. Templeton, she jumped at it like a dolphin at a silver spoon.”

The landlord laughed.  “But the mystery is,” said he, “how she got back to the house without being seen.  She must have been pretty spry.”

“O Mag, Mag, to think I never once thought to look after you!” exclaimed Mrs. McQuilken, penitently.

The bird was scolding all the while, and running about with short, jerky movements, trying her best to get out of the room; but the door was closed.

“Pretty thing,” said Edith.  “What a shame she should be a thief!”

“She is pretty, now isn’t she?” returned her mistress, fondly.  “My husband brought her from China.  You don’t often see a Chinese magpie, with blue plumage,—­cobalt blue.”

“She’s a perfect oddity,” said Mrs. Hale.  “See those two centre tail-feathers, so very long, barred with black and tipped with white.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Dunlee, “and the red bill and red legs.  She’s a brilliant creature, Mrs. McQuilken.”

“Well, you’ll try to forgive her, won’t you, sir?  I mean to bring her up as well as I know how; but what are you going to do with a girl that can’t sense the ten commandments?”

“What indeed!” laughed Mr. Dunlee.

“You see she’s naturally light-fingered.  Yes, you are, Mag, you needn’t deny it.  Those red claws of yours are just pickers and stealers.”

Here Edith called attention to Mag’s nest on the wall, and they all admired it; and Mrs. McQuilken said the canary liked to have Mag near him at night, he was apt to be lonesome.

“I wish you’d come in the daytime,” said she.  “Come any and all of you, and hear him sing.  He does sing so sweetly, poor blind thing; it’s as good as a sermon to hear him.”