"Put on your remembering cap and you will recall that you told me, if ever I could find another string of those semi-precious cardinal gems that you so greatly admired, to buy them at once, notify you and you would send me the money. Well, the deed is done. I have found the necklace, and, honestly, Jane, it holds all of the glory of the sunset and sunrise melted into one. They will set off your dark beauty to perfection. But I'll have to confess that I haven't a penny. Always broke, as you know, and so, if you want them, you'll have to mail me twenty-five perfectly good dollars by return post. "Yours in great haste, E. B." Jane sat looking thoughtfully out of the window. In about two weeks she would have a birthday, and on that occasion her aunt, after whom she was named, always sent her the amount needed for the gems, but in a postscript Esther had said that she had asked to have the chain held one week, feeling sure that by that time Jane would have sent the money. Taking from her purse two bills, she put them in an envelope addressed to Esther, added a hurried little letter, stamped it and was just wondering how she would get it to the post when she saw Meg Heger coming down the road on her pony. Although she herself would not ask a favor of the mountain girl, she called Julie and requested that she hail Meg and ask her to mail the letter. Not until it was done did Jane face her conscience. Had she any right to use the tax money for a necklace? She shrugged her shoulders. What would two weeks more or less matter? CHAPTER XX. MEG AS SCHOOL-MISTRESS Upon arriving in Redfords, Meg Heger had at once given the letter which had been marked "Important! Rush!" to the innkeeper, who was about to start for the station to meet the eastbound train. He promised the girl to attend to putting the letter on the train himself, and thus assured that she had served her neighbors to the best of her ability, Meg went across the road to the school, only to find that her good friend, Teacher Bellows, was not to be there that day as he had been sent for by a dying mountaineer in his capacity as preacher, and had left word that he wished Meg to hear the younger children recite, and dismiss them at two, which was an hour earlier than usual.