“Why not?” asked Bert.  “Are you afraid they’ll break it?”

“Oh no,” and Miss Pompret smiled.  “I’m not afraid of that.  But you see I haven’t the whole set, so I can’t show it all.  One of the sorrows of my life is that part of my beautiful set of china is missing.”

“There’s a lot of it, though,” added Bert, as he saw a number of shelves covered with the rare plates, cups and saucers.

“Yes, but the sugar bowl and cream pitcher are missing,” went on Miss Pompret, with a shake of her white head.  “They were beautiful.  But, alas! they are missing.”  And she sighed deeply.

“Where are they?” asked Nan.

“Ah, that’s the mystery I am going to tell you about,” said Miss Pompret.  “It isn’t a very big story, and I won’t keep you long.  It isn’t often I get a chance to tell it, so you must forgive an old lady for keeping you from your play,” and again she smiled, in rather a sad fashion, at Nan and Bert.

“Oh, we like it here!” exclaimed Nan quickly.

“It’s lots of fun!” added Bert.  “I like to hear about a mystery.”

“Well,” began Miss Pompret, “as I told you, this set of china has been in our family over a hundred years.  It was made in England, and each piece has the mark of the man who made it.  See, this is what I mean.”

She turned over one of the cups and showed the Bobbsey twins where, on the bottom, there was the stamp, in blue, of some animal in a circle of gold.

“That is the mark of the Waredon factory, where this china was made,” went on Miss Pompret.  “Only china made by Mr. Waredon can have this mark on it.”

“It looks like our dog Snap,” said Bert.

“Oh, no!” laughed Miss Pompret.  “That is supposed to be the British lion.  Mr. Waredon took that as a trade-mark, and at the top of the golden circle, with the blue lion inside, you can see the letter ‘J’ while at the bottom is the letter ‘W.’  They stand for the name Jonathan Waredon, in whose English factory the china was made.  Each piece has this mark on it, and no other make of china in the world can be rightfully marked like that.

“Well, now about the mystery.  Some years ago, before you children were born, I lived in another city.  I had the china set there with me, and then it was complete.  I had the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl.  One day a ragged man came to the house.  He was very ragged and poor.  I suppose you would call him a tramp.

“The cook I then had felt sorry for him, and let him come into the kitchen to have something to eat.  As it happened, part of my rare china set was on a table in the same room.  I was getting ready to wash it myself, as I would let no one else touch it.

“Well, when I came out to wash my beautiful dishes the sugar bowl and cream pitcher of the set were gone.  They had been on the table when the tramp was eating the lunch the cook gave him, but now they could not be found.  The cook and I looked all over for them—­we searched the house, in fact, but never found them.”