"Oh, my beautiful shawl!" said Aunt Pam, beginning all at once to feel the full shock of her loss. The tears rolled out of her dear old eyes, and my sisters began to snivel, as they always did. Mamma said it must be looked into, and for a moment I was scared. I thought of the smugglers' cave. "What must be looked into?" I said. "Why, the loss of the shawl," said mamma. "It must have been stolen out of the house." Our up-stairs girl was passing through the room when ma said that, and she turned red and pale. "Did you notice Maggie?" mamma said, when the door was shut. "Oh, mamma!" we all cried out, for we thought the world of Maggie. I couldn't help wondering how it was she was so red and flustered, while I was as cool as a cucumber. Aunt Pam declared she wouldn't have Maggie's feelings hurt for the world; and I said she was innocent, in a deep low solemn voice, but nobody paid any attention to me. Then I stopped to think before I went on. How could I betray my comrades and the whereabouts of the cave? I remembered the last piece I spoke in school, and how I hollered out the words, "O for a tongue to curse the slave Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o'er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might!" Could I be that traitor? No indeed--not much! Yet here was a dreadful row in the house, and the only way to mend matters was to get that shawl again as soon as possible. I resolved to get it that very night, and when I listened to an advertisement that Aunt Pam had written out for the paper, I saw my way clear. She said no questions would be asked if the article was promptly returned. That settled it. I went up to my room, and wrote out the following in a disguised hand: "Secrit and konfidenshal--the shawl's all right."