The box which she handed to Sylvia was covered with plaited blue silk.  It had a narrow edge of gilt braid around the cover.  Grace’s box was covered with yellow silk, but the boxes were of the same size.

As Sylvia and Grace lifted the covers they smiled and exclaimed happily.  The lace cushion lay inside, and in dainty little pockets on each side of the boxes were the delicate threads and materials for the lace.  A thimble of gold, with “Sylvia from Flora” engraved around its rim, was in Sylvia’s box, and one exactly like it was in Grace’s box.

“Oh, Flora Hayes!  This is the most beautiful present that ever was!” declared Sylvia; and Grace, holding the box with both hands, was hopping up and down saying over and over:  “Flora!  You are just like the Golden Princess in a fairy story who gives people what they want most.”

“My mother made the boxes herself,” Flora explained proudly.  “I wanted to give you girls something, and I’m awfully glad you like them.”  Then Flora stood up quickly.

“Girls!  I dressed up in Mother’s hat and skirt, that night at the plantation.  It wasn’t Lady Caroline.”

She spoke very rapidly as if she wished to finish as quickly as possible.  It was not easy to think of Flora Hayes as being ashamed, but Sylvia felt quite sure that Flora felt sorry that she had attempted to deceive her friends.

“I knew it all the time,” said Grace slowly, “and I told Sylvia it was you; didn’t I, Sylvia?”

“Yes,” said Sylvia, “and we knew you were sure to tell us about it, Flora.  But you did look just like the picture of Lady Caroline.”

Flora sat down.  It had been so much easier to confess than she had expected.  Neither Grace nor Sylvia had seemed resentful or surprised.

“You didn’t tell me that you knew,” she said, a little accusingly.

“Oh, well, we couldn’t do that, Flora.  You see we were your guests,” Grace explained.

“And we knew you were sure to tell us,” Sylvia added.

Flora was silent for a moment.  She was thinking that both her friends had been rather fine about the whole affair.  They had not run screaming from their room on the appearance of the “ghost,” and alarmed the house, and so brought discovery and punishment and shame upon her; neither had they resented her not confessing.

“Well, I do think you two girls are the nicest girls in this town,” she declared, “and I am mighty proud that you are my friends.  I can tell you one thing:  I’ll never try to make anyone believe in ghosts again.  I was half frightened to death myself when I crept up those stairs, and my shoulder has been lame ever since.”

Grace and Sylvia had wondered what the large basket contained, but in their interest over Flora’s beautiful gifts, and their delight in her “owning up” to being the “ghost,” they had quite forgotten about it.  It was Flora who now pointed at it and said laughingly:  “I’ve brought my dolls in that basket.”