"Who could help it!" exclaimed Brady, unguardedly. Then he cleared his throat with a nervous little cough, and began again with would-be unconcern: "By the way, I don't know whether I told you, that the day after you left Nepaug, Jimmy Anstice picked up a gold brooch on the beach, just where you came ashore after the wreck. It was a homely, old-fashioned thing, with a gold-stone centre big enough for a tombstone; but Jim brought it to me with all the pride of a discoverer. I turned it over, and on the back I saw engraved in the gold, 'To Nora from her Mother, on her birthday, November tenth,' Of course I knew in an instant that it belonged to Nora Costello. Then it came to me how the girl spent most of the day while she was at Nepaug wandering up and down on the beach. Of course she was looking for her brooch; but she was afraid, if she said anything, it would look like accusing somebody; and besides, very likely with her queer ideas she felt that she ought not to have kept any piece of jewelry, even if it was her mother's." "You seem to have studied her feelings rather closely." "Why, of course, when one meets a pretty girl like that--and really you know she is the prettiest I ever saw--" "How long is it since you said the same of Miss Anstice?" "Ah! that was before I met Nora Costello. 'Time's noblest offspring is his last.' But if you will keep still and listen, instead of interrupting all the time, you will hear something about the little plot which Miss Anstice and Cousin Susan and I have laid among us." "Well--" "I should say it was well. Just you wait and see. Cousin Susan is to write to Nora." "Nora?" commented Flint, with raised eyebrows. "Yes, Nora," repeated Brady, somewhat defiantly. "If I said Captain Costello you would not know whether I was talking of her or her brother." "Oh, yes, I should," said Flint, "for you never talk of him at all; but never mind that--go on with your revelations of this deep conspiracy." "You don't deserve to hear; but as it gives me pleasure to tell you, I will. Cousin Susan writes to the Costellos to come to the Anstices' house on the evening of November tenth. They arrive. We are there already. Tableau--old Nepaug minus Dr. Cricket and Ben Bradford--and a bouquet for Mistress Nora, with her brooch hanging from it in a little bag which Miss Standish was manufacturing when I came away. Now isn't that a scheme?" "The tenth of November," responded Flint, as though the latter part of the sentence had escaped him--"and am I to be invited?" "Why, of course!" exclaimed Brady, impatiently. "Weren't you the one to save her life? Worse luck to you for having the honor fall to your share!" "Then," said Flint, with that curious obliviousness of the important parts of his companion's remarks,--"then in common civility I ought to call there beforehand." "Ah! Flint, I'm glad to see you waking up to some decent sense of social observances."