"Put the locket carefully away in your desk, dear," said Miss Ashton to Belle, "and do not fret about it. Your papa will have it fixed for you, and it will be as good as ever." Belle obeyed, putting the locket carefully in one corner of her desk, with a rampart of books raised about it; and then returned to her place, still rather disconsolate, and feeling that she was fully entitled to all the pitying and sympathizing looks bestowed upon her. After this the business of the class went on without farther interruption, and the arithmetic lesson came to an end. [Illustration] [Illustration] X. _A TERRIBLE LOSS._ When Miss Ashton dismissed the rest of her little class for the recess which they took in the course of the morning, she told Mabel to come with her; and taking her apart into a room by herself, she talked gravely but kindly to her. "Would you like it, my dear?" she said, "if I sent you home with a note to your mamma, saying I could no longer have you in the school?" Mabel hesitated a moment, half-inclined to say that it was just what she would like; but calling to mind the nice plays she often had with her young school-mates, the pretty picture cards she sometimes received from Miss Ashton when she had been particularly good or recited her lessons well, and several other pleasures which school afforded, she thought better of it, and said she would not like it at all; adding to herself what she dared not say aloud to Miss Ashton, that she would carry no such note home, but throw it away in the street if it was given to her. "And I should be very sorry to do it," said the young lady; "but, Mabel, unless you do better, I cannot have you in my school. Why, my dear, since you have been here there has been more quarrelling and disturbance than during all the rest of the time I have had the class. This must not go on; for you cannot stay with us if you will behave so as to destroy all our peace and comfort." Mabel hung her head; but she took the reproof better than she generally received any fault-finding; and after Miss Ashton had talked a little more, setting her naughtiness and its sad consequences plainly before her, and urging her to be good and amiable for her own sake as well as because it was right, she had permission to go, and left her teacher, half-repentant, but still not quite determined to take her advice and warnings and make up her mind to be a better child.