"Then I shan't go. I don't want to see her," said Mabel. "Belle, don't go. Stay and play with me." But Belle, who was very fond of her teacher and always liked to see her, and who, moreover, had a faint hope that she might have brought some good news about the locket, insisted on going to her aunt's room; and Mabel, dreading the same thing and yet not daring to stay behind, reluctantly followed. Mrs. Walton and Miss Ashton looked from one to the other of the children as they entered; and as the former saw Mabel's downcast, shamefaced look as she came forward, her heart sank within her. What if Mabel should be really guilty, after all? "Did you find any thing of my locket, Miss Ashton?" asked little Belle, as soon as she had welcomed the young lady. "Not yet, dear; but I have some hope of doing so," answered Miss Ashton, looking at Mabel. "Now, I want you to tell your aunt and myself all you can about it. You are quite sure you did not touch it after I saw you put it in your desk?" "Quite, quite sure, ma'am; and I never went to my desk after that, 'cept to put away my slate; and there's nothing more to tell about it, Miss Ashton, only how I went there to give it to Daphne, and couldn't find it. It was perferly gone," and Belle gave a long sigh, which told how deep her loss lay. "Mabel," said Mrs. Walton, suddenly, "did you see Belle's locket after it was broken?" Mabel hung her head more than ever, stammered and stuttered, and finally burst into tears. Belle looked at her, colored, and hesitated; then stepped up to her, and putting her arm about her shoulder said,-- "I don't b'lieve Mabel did take it, Aunt Fanny: I don't think she could be so mean to me. I _tried_ not to b'lieve it, and now I don't think I do. Please don't you and Miss Ashton b'lieve so either, Aunt Fanny." Belle's "love-charity" was too much for Mabel. Taking her hands from before her face, she clasped them about her cousin's neck, and sobbed out,-- "Oh! I did, Belle. I did take it out of your desk; but I never, never meant to keep it,--no, not even to show to the locket-man; but I couldn't find it to put it back; and I'm so sorry, I'll just give you any thing in the world of mine, 'cept my papa and mamma." Mabel's words were so incoherent that all her hearers could understand was that she had taken the locket; and though Belle had been obliged to try hard to believe in her cousin's honesty, the shock to the faith she had built up was now so great that her arm dropped from Mabel's shoulder, and she stood utterly amazed and confounded. Mrs. Walton, too, sat as if she were stricken dumb; and Miss Ashton was the first to speak, which she did in a tone more grieved and sorrowful than stern. "And where is the locket now, Mabel? Did you say you cannot find it?" Mabel shook her head in assent. "What have you done with it?" asked Mrs. Walton, in a tone that Mabel had never known her mother use to her before.