"Brenda never got me to put that expense down in the account-book," said Nina. "Oh, she wouldn't!" exclaimed Josie. "She's too sly." "It seems a great pity," said Nina, after another restless twiddle in her little hot bed, "that we can't find out." "We could look through the drawers, of course," said Joey, "and discover for ourselves." "Brenda keeps the top drawer locked and has taken the key." Nina gave a little jump. "I tell you what!" she said. "Why shouldn't we try if the key of the wardrobe would open the top drawer of the chest of drawers? It looks exactly the same: I noticed that myself when first we came." "But there isn't any key to the wardrobe!" exclaimed Joey. "Oh--isn't there? I know better. It was always lying on the floor, and I picked it up and put it behind that ornament on the mantelpiece so as to get it out of the way." "Well--we can look at once," said Josie. "What fun it will be if Fanchon really has a shilling bangle, and Brenda forgot to have it entered in the accounts!" The two girls sprang out of bed. They were trembling with excitement. They longed beyond anything to discover if Mademoiselle was right. "But if she has it," suddenly exclaimed Nina, "she may be wearing it-- it's just the sort of thing she would do--she'd be so desperately proud of it!" "Yes," said Josie, "and by the evening light people would think it was real. Oh, I say, Nina, what fun--this key does open the drawers! Yes, and locks them too. I say now, shall we have a search?" The girls ransacked the precious locked drawer, and of course, in less than a minute, came upon the gold bangle with the turquoise ornament. They brought it to the window and examined it carefully by the light of the moon. While Josie held it, Nina kept the little box, in which it was generally concealed, in her hand. She now read the writing on it. "Why--it _is_ Fanchon's!" she cried, "here's her name on the box saying that the bangle is hers. Oh, what a wicked, wicked Fanchon, not to tell us! Won't we tease her about this!" "No, we mustn't," said Josie. "But I tell you what we'll do. We'll just carefully--most carefully--put that key away, and then to-morrow night before we go out, we'll unlock the drawer and take the bangle, and either you or I can wear it. What _awful_ fun that'll be! We'll have our surprise too--how clever of Mademoiselle to know!" "Perhaps after our delicious time out is over, and our surprise is come to an end, we may talk to Fanchon about her horrid meanness in keeping the bangle a secret." "Of course it isn't real gold--it's only one of those shilling things; but she might have told--that she might." "That she might," exclaimed the other sister.