"Well, when Pollock doubted that you'd given him the right pin, he sent Ashton to find out, and then when you were so clever as to fool Ashton so fully, he thought you had been frightened into it, at last." "But what do they want the pin _for_?" "Just as Pollock said; to add to a collection of such things. You know that dime and pin joke is in all the papers. Everybody knows about it." "But why so desperately anxious to get the very one? If they did have another, nobody would ever be the wiser." "Not unless you withheld the real one, and then gave it or sold it to somebody else later. That would make Pollock's pin a fraud. Now, he's sure he has the very pin." "Well, of all rubbish! But, you're right. I suppose friend Ashton went to the gate post, and not finding it there, he hovered around the house hoping to get in and hunt for himself." "Just that. And he did get in--I'm not sure he wouldn't have taken something more valuable than the pin, if you hadn't caught him." "I don't know; he didn't seem at all like an ordinary thief. Now, I'm going to see if Polly knows anything about the real pin." * * * * * It was nearly time for the Sunday dinner, and Iris, going to the kitchen, found the old cook busy with her preparations. "Oh, don't bother me 'bout that now, Miss Iris," Polly said; "I've gotter set this custard----" "Behave yourself, Polly! It won't hurt your old custard to take one minute to answer my question. Did you take a pin out of the under side of Agnes' pincushion?" "Come outside here," and the cook drew Iris out to the kitchen porch. "Now," she whispered, "don't you talk so free 'bout that pin. Yes, Miss Iris, I got it, and you kin be mighty glad. That's a vallyble pin, that is, and don't you fergit it!" "Valuable, how? And where is it?" "Well, you know, Mrs. Pell, she set great store by that pin. Many's the time, when she's been goin' to New York or somewhere, she's said to me, 'Polly, you keep this safe till I get home,' and she'd hand me that self-same pin. And would I guard it? Well, wouldn't I!" "But why, _why_, Polly, did she set such store by it?" "It was her Luck, Miss Iris----" "Luck, fiddlesticks! Aunt Ursula wasn't a fool! If she'd kept that pin for luck, she'd have stuck it away and left it alone." "Now, you know there's no telling _what_ Mrs. Pell would do! Anybody else might have done this or that, but there's no use sayin' _she_ would. She was a law unto herself. But, anyway, that pin's valuable, and it don't matter for what reason! So, I got it away from Agnes, who hasn't a mite of right to it, and saved it for you. Why, Miss Iris, didn't your aunt, time and again, say she was goin' to leave you a valuable pin? Her little joke was neither here nor there. She said she'd leave you a _valuable_ pin--and she did!"