"How did you know about that?" asked Ruby, in astonishment. "I caught my mitten on your basket in my haste to get the chickens, and the edge was all ravelled off, and--the very queerest thing that ever happened!--some one knit it on again--with yarn. The mittens are worsted; see the difference." Ruby held up the mended mitten, with an edge of coarse yarn, to Patty's gaze. "It was done at the party! I think it must have been Grandma Pitkin who did it. Perhaps it had dropped from my pocket in the dressing-room, and she saw it. Wasn't it kind of her? I must go and thank her." Patty tried to say "it wasn't Grandma Pitkin; it was Tilly Coombs," but there was a lump in her throat that choked her. And it happened that they just then reached a turn in the road and saw a girl's figure ahead of them. She walked from side to side of the road, keeping her eyes on the ground, and occasionally prodding into it with a stick which she carried. "It's Tilly Coombs, and she seems to be searching for something," said Ruby. Patty darted on ahead, and seized Tilly around the neck with both arms. Even then Patty saw how pitifully worn and pale the girl had grown. What had been only a little comedy to Ruby, pleasant because she had so happily relieved the dog's sufferings, had been almost a tragedy to Tilly Coombs. [Illustration: "TILLY, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?" SAID PATTY.] "Tilly, can you ever forgive me?" said Patty, struggling with a tendency to cry. "I know all about it--how you knitted the mitten to keep Ruby from being found out, and how you bore it all and didn't tell." "You hain't been telling _her_?" said Tilly, anxiously. "I don't think she knows she lost the spoons. I saw that she came down this road that night, and I've been hunting for them. I ain't going to have a mite of trouble come on her. She's been different to me from what anybody ever was before, not looking down on me as if I was the dirt under her feet. And her father, too, he's come and come to see mother when he knew there wa'n't a cent to pay him with. I _have_ bore a sight"--Tilly's strained voice threatened to break--"but I can bear more. I won't have trouble come to her if I can help it. You _hain't_ been telling her all about it?" Ruby came up to them before there was time for an answer. "Hunting for something, Tilly?" she asked, easily. "I'm afraid you won't find it in all this mud." "No--no, I hain't found them," stammered Tilly, uncertain whether Ruby knew about the spoons. "But"--and her face lighted with sudden eagerness--"I've found something queer; you see if it isn't queer." Tilly turned back, running before them up to the door of the miser's little house. "No, it isn't the tracks," she added, as Ruby hurriedly explained about the dog. "It's the door-stone; it looks as if it had been moved lately. If you are looking along on the ground, as I was, you notice it." "Well, what if it has?" asked Ruby, wondering, and a little impatient.