“Oh, but she’s jolly,” Edith said, “I don’t wonder Mr. Arthur loves her,” and she felt her own heart throb with a strange affection for the beautiful original of that daguerreotype.

In the hall without there was the sound of a footstep.  It was coming to that room.  It was Grace herself, Edith thought; and knowing she would be censured for touching what did not belong to her, she thrust the locket into her bosom, intending to return it as soon as possible, and springing out upon the piazza, scampered away, leaving the water pail to betray her recent presence.

It was not Grace, as she had supposed, but Arthur St. Claire himself come to put away the locket, which he suddenly remembered to have left upon the table.  Great was his consternation when he found it gone, and that no amount of searching could bring it to light.  He did not notice the empty pail the luckless Edith had left, although he stumbled over it twice in his feverish anxiety to find his treasure.  But what he failed to observe was discovered by Grace, whom he summoned to his aid, and who exclaimed: 

“Edith Hastings has been here!  She must be the thief!”

“Edith, Grace, Edith—­it cannot be,” and Arthur’s face indicated plainly the pain it would occasion him to find that it was so.

“I hope you may be right, Arthur, but I have not so much confidence in her as you seem to have.  There she is now,” continued Grace, spying her across the yard and calling to her to come.

Blushing, stammering, and cowering like a guilty thing, Edith entered the room, for she heard Arthur’s voice and knew that he was there to witness her humiliation.

“Edith,” said Mrs. Atherton, sternly, “what have you been doing?”

No answer from Edith save an increase of color upon her face, and with her suspicions confirmed, Grace went on,

“What have you in your pocket?”

“’Taint in my pocket; it’s in my bosom,” answered Edith, drawing it forth and holding it to view.

“How dare you steal it,” asked Grace, and instantly there came into Edith’s eyes the same fiery, savage gleam from which Mrs. Atherton always shrank, and beneath which she now involuntarily quailed.

It had never occurred to Edith that she could be accused of theft, and she stamped at first like a little fury, then throwing herself upon the sofa, sobbed out, “Oh, dear—­oh, dear, I wish God would let me die.  I don’t want to live any longer in such a mean, nasty world.  I want to go to Heaven, where everything is jolly.”

“You are a fit subject for Heaven,” said Mrs. Atherton, scornfully, and instantly the passionate sobbing ceased; the tears were dried in the eyes which blazed with insulted dignity as Edith arose, and looking her mistress steadily in the face, replied,

“I suppose you think I meant to steal and keep the pretty picture, but the one who was in here with me knows I didn’t.”