Belle began to understand that all her anxiety had been needless.

“What does this mean?” asked Allan, as Morgan put into his hand a little worn case.

The children crowded around him as he opened it and disclosed the long-lost, much talked of sapphire ring.  In his delight the cabinet-maker almost danced a jig, and continued to repeat, “I’m a magician.”

“It’s found; it’s found!” cried Rosalind.

“And I knew it,” said Belle.

“Hello!” exclaimed Jack.  “Was this your secret?  Did Morgan tell you?”

Belle tried to explain her discovery, but so great was the excitement nobody would listen.  It was really beyond belief that Patricia’s ring was actually in their hands.  It was some time before they quieted down sufficiently to hear Morgan’s story.

He had begun work on the spinet several days ago, he said, and upon removing the top had noticed something wedged in under the strings, which upon investigation he found to be the case containing the ring.

“But where is the other ring?” Rosalind asked.

The magician laughed and said that was another story, and he told how the evening before the real ring was found, Crisscross had been seized with a fit of unusual playfulness, and jumping up on the chest, above which the ring hung, had begun to move it to and fro with his paw, presently knocking it off and sending it rolling across the floor.  He darted after it under tables and chairs but apparently never found it; nor could the magician, although he searched carefully.

“So the mystery is not ended yet.  We do not know what became of the magic ring, nor how the real ring came to be in the spinet,” Allan remarked.

“It is exactly like a sure enough fairy tale,” added Belle; and then she whispered her part of the story, turning her back to the magician, for fear he might see what she was talking about.

“And how about the detective?  Did you think he was coming to arrest Morgan?” asked Maurice.

Belle looked a little shamefaced.  “I didn’t know,” she said.

Mr. Whittredge wanted to hear about the detective, and was much amused at her description of the taking of his picture.

Rosalind as she listened held the ring in her hand—­Patricia’s ring.  She had thought a great deal about Patricia, and this seemed to bring her near and make her more real—­the young girl who had looked like Aunt Genevieve, only more kind.

“Let’s show the ring to Miss Betty!  May we, Mr. Whittredge?” asked Belle.

Allan did not appear enthusiastic over the suggestion, but he did not refuse, and followed the children at a distance as they raced across the street.

“There’s the detective now,” cried Jack, at the gate.

“Where?” the others asked breathlessly.

“On the porch with Miss Betty.”

Sure enough, partially shielded from view by the vines, in one of Miss Betty’s comfortable chairs, sat the stranger.