"And she had a true voice," I persisted, not choosing to be put down, also thinking it right to assert what was my conviction. "A voice you might trust without as much as looking at herself." Well, the earring was not to be found; though the search continued more or less till bed-time, for every other minute somebody would be looking again on the carpets. "It is not so much for the value I regret it," spoke Mrs. Todhetley, the tears rising in her meek eyes: "as for the old associations connected with it. I never had the earrings out but they brought back to me the remembrance of my girlhood's home." Early in the morning I ran down to the school-house. More snow had fallen in the night. The children were flocking in. Miss Timmens had not noticed the earrings at all, but several of the girls said they had. Strange to say, though, most of them could not say for certain whether they saw _both_ the earrings: they thought they did; but there it ended. Just like old Coney! "I am sure both of them were there," spoke up a nice, clean little girl, from a back form. "What's that, Fanny Fairfax?" cried Miss Timmens, in her quick way. "Stand up. How are you sure of it?" "Please governess, I saw them both," was the answer; and the child blushed like a peony as she stood up above the others and said it. "Are you sure you did?" "Yes, I'm quite sure, please, governess. I was looking which o' the two shined the most. 'Twas when the lady was stooping over the shirt, and the sun came in at the window." "What did they look like?" asked Miss Timmens. "They looked----" and there the young speaker came to a standstill. "Come, Fanny Fairfax!" cried Miss Timmens, sharply. "What d'you stop for? I ask you what the earrings looked like. You must be able to tell if you saw them." "They were red, please, governess, and had shining things round them like the ice when it glitters." "She's right, Master Johnny," nodded Miss Timmens to me: "and she's a very correct child in general. I think she must have seen both of them." I ran home with the news. They were at breakfast still. "What a set of muffs the children must be, not to have taken better notice!" cried Tod. "Why, when I saw only the one earring in, it struck my eye at once." "And for that reason it is almost sure that both of them were in at the school-house," I rejoined. "The children did not particularly observe the two, but they would have remarked it directly had only one been in. Old Coney said the same." "Ay: it's that tramp that has got it," said the Squire. "While your mother was talking to her, it must have slipped out of the ear, and she managed to secure it. Those tramps lay their hands on anything; nothing comes amiss to them; they are as bad as gipsies. I dare say this was a gipsy--dark as she was. I'll be off to Worcester and see the police: we'll soon have _her_ found. You had better come with me, Johnny; you'll be able to describe her."