They were going back to Bingville next day. Martha and Susan had been getting the house ready. Mrs. Bing had been preparing what she fondly hoped would be "a lovely surprise" for Phyllis. Roger Delane was coming up to spend a quiet week with the Bings--a week of opportunity for the young people with saddle horses and a new steam launch and a Peterborough canoe and all pleasant accessories. Then, on the twentieth, which was the birthday of Phyllis, there was to be a dinner and a house party and possibly an announcement and a pretty wagging of tongues. Indeed, J. Patterson had already bought the wedding gift, a necklace of pearls, and paid a hundred thousand dollars for it and put it away in his safe. The necklace had pleased him. He had seen many jewels, but nothing so satisfying--nothing that so well expressed his affection for his daughter. He might never see its like again. So he bought it against the happy day which he hoped was near. He had shown it to his wife and charged her to make no mention of it until "the time was ripe," in his way of speaking. Mrs. Bing had promised on her word and honor to respect the confidence of her husband, with all righteous intention, but on the very day of their arrival in Bingville, Sophronia (Mrs. Pendleton) Ames called. Sophronia was the oldest and dearest friend that Mamie Bing had in the village. The latter enjoyed her life in New York, but she felt always a thrill at coming back to her big garden and the green trees and the ample spaces of Bingville, and to the ready, sympathetic confidence of Sophronia Ames. She told Sophronia of brilliant scenes in the changing spectacle of metropolitan life, of the wonderful young man and the untimely affliction of Phyllis, now happily past. Then, in a whisper, while Sophronia held up her right hand as a pledge of secrecy, she told of the necklace of which the lucky girl had no knowledge. Now Mrs. Ames was one of the best of women. People were wont to speak of her, and rightly, as "the salt of the earth." She would do anything possible for a friend. But Mamie Bing had asked too much. Moreover, always it had been understood between them that these half playful oaths were not to be taken too seriously. Of course, "the fish had to be fed," as Judge Crooker had once put it. By "the fish," he meant that curious under-life of the village--the voracious, silent, merciless, cold-blooded thing which fed on the sins and follies of men and women and which rarely came to the surface to bother any one. "The fish are very wise," Judge Crooker used to say. "They know the truth about every one and it's well that they do. After all, they perform an important office. There's many a man and woman who think they've been fooling the fish but they've only fooled themselves." And within a day or two, the secrets of the Bing family were swimming up and down the stream of the under-life of Bingville.