The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 33

"It couldn't be a real burglar," murmured Agnes, quiveringly. "Oh, Neale! I wouldn't have thought it of you!

"And Aunt Sarah must have scared him when he was at that closet. But, goodness me! what would Neale O'Neil want in that old closet? Nothing there much but medicines on the top shelf and old books and papers.

I-don't see-

"_Could_ it be a really, truly burglar, after all? Not one like Dot's plumber, but a real one? And why didn't Tom Jonah bark? Oh, goodness!

suppose he hasn't gone out after all?

"Oh! I want to go to bed and cover my head up with blankets!" gasped Agnes. "I want to tell Ruth-but I daren't! Maybe I ought to call everybody and make a search for the burglar. But suppose it _should_ be Neale?"

So she stole up to bed, shaking with nervous dread, yet feeling as though she ought, somehow, to be congratulated. Yet when she had slipped off her robe and was in bed again, two separate and important thoughts a.s.sailed her:

Had Barnabetta Scruggs been out of her room? And what had Aunt Sarah Maltby done with the key to the dining room closet?

CHAPTER XX

LEMUEL ADEN'S DIARY

Agnes slept so late that Sunday morning that she had to "scrabble," as she herself confessed, to get down to breakfast before everybody else was through.

As the members of the Corner House family who had risen earlier made no remarks about burglars in the night, Agnes decided she would better say nothing of her own experience.

It really seemed to Agnes now as though it had been a dream. Only she noticed when she sat down at the table that the big bra.s.s key was missing from the lock of the closet door.

Aunt Sarah said nothing at that time about her midnight rambling; nor about what she had locked up in the chimney-place cupboard. Ruth looked much worried and disturbed. Of course, the missing alb.u.m had not come to light. Ruth truly believed that a great fortune had been within their grasp and it was now utterly gone.

"And gone beyond redemption. We shall never see it again," she said to Agnes.

Agnes did not want to discuss this with her sister. She was quite as puzzled as was Ruth over the disappearance of the old alb.u.m in which had been pasted the bonds and money; only she could not bring herself to believe, as Ruth did, that the bonds and money were good.

She wondered if Neale O'Neil had found the answer to this problem while he was in Tiverton. Then she winced when she thought of Neale. He did not appear at the old Corner House on this Sunday morning, as he usually did.

They must wait until Monday for Ruth to go to the bank again and have the right ten dollar bill examined. She admitted that she might have shown the new banknote instead of the old one to Mr. Crouch.

"Though lots of good it will do us to know for certain whether the money was good and legal tender or not, now that it has been stolen," Ruth grieved.

Barnabetta appeared at breakfast and Agnes noticed that the circus girl's eyes were red and her manner much subdued.

The Corner House family prepared for church much as usual. Aunt Sarah always made most of her preparations-even to the filling of her dress pocket with a handful of peppermint lozenges-the night before.

Time was when the Kenway sisters had to scrimp and save to find the five pennies weekly to purchase Aunt Sarah's supply of peppermints; now they were bought in quant.i.ty and-

"I don't see why you young ones can't leave 'em alone," said the old lady, severely, as she swept down into the hall in her best silk dress and popped the first lozenge of the day into her mouth.

"I forgot 'em last night till I'd got to bed, and when I come down here for 'em, I declare I couldn't scurce find 'em in that cupboard. But I got 'em locked away now an' I guess you won't be so free with 'em."

At this Agnes was attacked by "a fit of the giggles," as Aunt Sarah expressed it. But the girl was not laughing at Aunt Sarah. Her thought was:

"My goodness me! was _that_ what the burglar was after-Aunt Sarah's peppermints?" But she missed seeing Barnabetta's face at this juncture.

Dot cried: "Oh, my, Miss Barnabetta! don't you feel well a-_tall_ this morning?"

"Oh, yes, my dear, I am quite well," said the circus girl, hastily.

Tess said doubtfully: "I-I hope we didn't tire you last night asking for stories?"

"No, indeed."

"But you just _did_ look as though you were going to faint," said Dot.

"There, there," said Mrs. MacCall. "Appearances aren't everything. The looks of a toad don't tell how far he's goin' to hop."

"No-o," agreed Tess. "And, anyway, toads are very useful animals, even if they are so very ugly."

Barnabetta had the two little girls again, one on either side of her, before the fire. She had plainly become their fast friend.

Barnabetta said, more cheerfully: "Toads are not always ugly. Didn't you ever see a toad early in the mornin'-when the gra.s.s and everything is all sparklin' with dew? Oh! I must tell you a story about _that_."

"Do, Miss Barnabetta," breathed Tess, eagerly.

"Oh! that will be lovely!" murmured Dot.

"Once upon a time a little brown toad-a very warty toad-lived in a little house he had scooped for himself in the dirt right under a rose tree. He was a very sensible, hard-workin' toad, only he grieved because he was so ugly.

"He never would have known he was so ugly, for he had no mirror in his house, if it hadn't been for the rose. But lookin' up at the buddin'

rose, he saw how beautiful she was and knew that in contrast he was the very ugliest beast that moved upon the earth."

"The poor thing!" murmured Tess, the tender-hearted.

"He near about wors.h.i.+pped that rose," pursued Barnabetta, her own eyes brighter as the children followed her story breathlessly. "Every day he watched her unfold her petals more and more. He caught all the bugs and flies and ugly grubs he could to keep them from comin' at the rose and doin' her harm.

"Then came the mornin'," said Barnabetta, "when the rose was fully unfolded. The dew overnight had bejeweled each petal and when the first rays of the sun hurried to kiss her, the dewdrops sparkled like all manner of gems and precious stones.

"'Oh, see!' sighed the poor toad, 'how beautiful is the rose and how ugly I am.'

"But the rose heard him and she looked kindly down upon the poor toad.

She knew how faithfully he had guarded her from the creepin' and flyin'

things that would have spoiled her beauty.

"'Come here,' she said to the toad, bendin' down upon her stalk to see him better. And the toad hopped close beneath her. 'Come here,' said the rose, 'and I will make you, too, beautiful.'

"And then she called to the mornin' breeze, 'Shake me!' and the breeze did so-ever so gently-and all the sparklin', twinklin' precious gems of dewdrops shook off the rose and fell upon the toad in a shower.

"And at once," laughed Barnabetta, "the toad was covered with diamonds, and spangles, and glistenin' drops of dew in which the sun was reflected, till the toad appeared to be encased in an armor of silver, trimmed with jewels, and all the creatures in the garden cried: