"_Jane!_" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap, with sudden sharpness, "what--what is _that_?" She was pointing to a corner of the trunk, her eyes round with horrified surprise. Jane's tear-blurred gaze followed the direction of her mistress's accusing finger. "Will you take everything out of the trunk, please, and place the articles on this chair, one by one," commanded Mrs. Belknap. The girl obeyed in stupefied silence. "Do these articles--this fraternity badge, these hat pins, and this handkerchief belong to you, Jane?" "No!--oh, my God, _no_!" cried Jane, staring with a suddenly blanching face at the little group of articles which Mrs. Belknap had singled out from among the things on the chair. There was a tense silence in the room for the space of a minute; then Master Belknap's little feet were heard laboriously climbing the stair. "Muzzer!" he shouted, "I want 'oo, muzzer! I tan't find my Jane!" Jane sobbed aloud. "Oh, Jane, I _am_ so _sorry_!" sighed Mrs. Belknap faintly. "Of course, you will have to go. But I shall not--" She hesitated over the harsh word, and finally substituted another. "I shall not tell anyone of this; except," she added firmly, "Mr. Belknap and Mr. Everett. I _must_ tell them, of course. They will be sorry, too." Jane stared at her mistress through a blur of anguished tears. "Do you think--oh, you _can't_ believe I did it?" "What else _can_ I believe?" Mrs. Belknap said sorrowfully. Then she arose with decision. "If you will come to me when you have packed, Jane, I will pay you your wages. And I do hope, my poor girl, that this will be a lesson to you. _Nothing_ is so well worth while as truthfulness and honesty. _Try_ to remember it, Jane, after this; will you?" Jane's face hardened. "I didn't do it," she said doggedly. "That wicked Mary has been in my room. She said she had. She must have put these things in my trunk. I never saw them before." "_Jane!_" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap; there was stern reproof, righteous anger, and a rapidly growing disgust in her voice. Then she swept out, pausing merely to say: "You may pack your things _at once_!" John Everett came home early from the city that night. He had arrived at an important decision--namely, to make a confidante of his sister with regard to his unmistakable feelings for Jane. "Margaret is a brick!" he told himself hopefully. "She will understand; I know she will, and do the square thing by us both. It isn't as though Jane was a common, uneducated person; she is a lady to the tips of her little fingers--bless her!"