“Don’t worry.  I made a find, but you never could guess, if you lived a thousand years, what I found.  I couldn’t have guessed it either.  Nor could Harriet, as sharp as she is.  Now, listen, darlin’s.  I found—­I found—­oh, if you knew how funny you all look!  I found an old pair of specs—­spectacles.  I fooled you that time, didn’t I?” she chuckled, hugging herself delightedly.  “You thought it was something wonderful.”

“Oh, fudge!” said Margery disgustedly.  “I might have known you weren’t in earnest.”

“I call that real mean of you, Jane,” pouted Hazel Holland.

Miss Elting laughed tolerantly, nodding at Harriet as though to say, “I told you so.”  But Harriet’s gaze was fixed on Crazy Jane’s face.  Harriet knew very well that there was something more to be said; that Jane really had made an important discovery, and that, after having teased her companions to her satisfaction, she would tell them the rest of the story.

“Spectacles were made to assist people in seeing.  Suppose you let us see, Jane,” suggested Harriet.

“Now, now, Bright Eyes, don’t be hasty,” chided Jane.  “Do you really wish to see?”

Harriet yawned as though completely indifferent.

“I am not so curious over your discovery that I cannot wait until morning to hear about it.  I’m sleepy and I am going to bed, provided I can find one,” she replied, rising and stretching herself indolently.  “Good night, Jane.”

“Wait!” Jane knew that Harriet meant exactly what she said.  She knew that it was time to stop trifling and to explain.  “If you must see them, here they are.”  She drew the “specs” from a pocket in her skirt, holding them at arm’s-length suspended from a string that the wearer had fastened to them to keep the glasses over his eyes.

Harriet and Miss Elting uttered an “Oh!”

“I thought you would say something when you saw them,” chuckled Jane.  Her face was flushed; her eyes sparkled triumphantly.

“Huh!  Goggles!” grunted Janus.

“You have guessed it the first time,” cried Jane.

“Green goggles!  Do you see that, girls?” cried Harriet excitedly.

[Illustration:  “Green goggles!” cried Harriet excitedly.]

“They are, indeed,” breathed the guardian.

“Well, I swum!  Where’d you find them?” questioned the guide, interested, but failing to catch the real significance of Jane McCarthy’s discovery.

“Oh-h-h-h!” chorused the Meadow-Brook Girls.

“And I believe they are the very same,” declared Harriet, nodding thoughtfully over the goggles, which she had taken from Jane’s hand.  “You certainly have made a find.  I think we are beginning to understand, Miss Elting.”

“Yes.  Mr. Grubb does not, though.”

“Some one dropped them; I understand that well enough.  But the spectacles themselves don’t tell us who the fellow is by a long shot.  I know you ladies have discovered something about the ‘specs’ and I’d like pretty well to hear what it is.”