“Then he started on a dead run up the stair.  Above all was in confusion, as in the dining-room.  Vases were broken, pictures hung awry on the walls; but nowhere was Mrs. Bradley or one of the Bradley children to be seen.

“Then we began a systematic search of the house.  Everywhere everything was upside-down, and finally we came to a door on the third story back, leading into the children’s play-room, and as we turned the knob and tried to open it we heard Mrs. Bradley’s voice from within.

“‘Who’s there?’ she said, her voice all of a tremble.

“‘It is I!’ returned Bradley.  ’Open the door.  What is the meaning of all this?’

“‘Oh, I’m so glad you have come!’ returned Mrs. Bradley, with a sob, and then we heard sounds as of the moving of heavy furniture.  Mrs. Bradley, for some as yet unexplained reason, seemed to have barricaded herself in.

“Finally the door was opened, and Mrs. Bradley buried her face on her husband’s shoulder and sobbed hysterically.

“‘What on earth is the matter?’ asked Bradley, as his children followed their mother’s lead, except that they buried their faces in his coat-tail pockets.  ‘What has happened?’

“‘Mary!’ gasped Mrs. Bradley.”

“The jewel?” asked Bessie.

“The same,” returned Thaddeus, with a smile.  “She was the jewel, alas! now deprived of her former glorious setting.

“‘What’s the matter with Mary?’ asked Bradley.

“‘She’s been behaving outrageously.  I found her this morning,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ’rummaging through my escritoire, throwing things all over the floor; and when I remonstrated she said she was looking for a sheet of paper on which to write a letter.  I told her she should have asked me for it, and she replied impertinently that she never asked favors of anybody.  I told her to leave the room, and she declined to do it, picking up a sofa-pillow and throwing it at me.  I was so overcome I nearly fainted.’”

“I should think she would have been overcome!  Such impudence!” said Bessie.

“Humph!” said Thaddeus.  “That isn’t a marker to what followed.  Why, according to Mrs. Bradley’s story, that escaped Koh-i-noor called her all sorts of horrible names, threw an empty ink-pot at a photograph of Bradley himself, that stood on the mantel, and then, grabbing up a whisk-broom, literally swept everything else there was on the mantel off to the floor with it.  This done, she began to overturn chairs with an ardor born of temper, apparently; and, finally, Mrs. Bradley got so frightened that she ran from the room, and the jewel started in pursuit.  Straight to the nursery ran the lady of the house—­for there was where the children were, playing house, no doubt, with little idea that jewels sometimes deteriorated.  Once in the nursery, Mrs. Bradley slammed the door to, locked it, and then, still fearful, rolled before it the bureau and the children’s cribs.