Sammy returned with Kate, Nurse Norrie's niece.

"Sure I saw the slippers, Miss Martin," said Kate. "I put them both on the window-sill with the doll baby, and then I saw that the screen had fallen out of the window, and I ran down to tell Mat to put it in, and I never thought of them from that moment to this."

"It must have fallen out of the window," said Miss Martin, "though I don't exactly see how. We'll ask Mat to take a lantern and look for it in the gra.s.s."

Mat carefully searched in the gra.s.s, and round the roots of the big tree, whose branches brushed against the very window-sill, and which knew the answer to the puzzle if only they could tell. He swung his lantern over the piazza roof and window-ledges, too, but in vain. The bronze slipper was not to be found, and Lydia and Mary Ellen went to bed side by side without even saying good-night.

Miss Martin hesitated whether to try to reconcile the little girls, but Lydia still believed Mary Ellen responsible for her loss, and Mary Ellen was hurt and angry at the undeserved suspicion.

"If I talk to them, no doubt they will say they are sorry, and that they forgive one another," Miss Martin reflected wisely, "but they will say it really to please me. They won't feel any different in their hearts. I will wait and see whether the mystery won't clear itself up to-morrow."

So, trusting in the morrow, Miss Martin put the thought out of her mind for the time being, since no one but Lydia now believed Mary Ellen had anything to do with the disappearance of the "brown betty," and Lydia was forbidden to repeat her unwarranted accusation.

"Good news for you, Lydia," was Miss Martin's morning greeting. "Your mother is better, and you are to go home this afternoon."

"Oh, goody!" said Lydia, smiling broadly as she sat up in bed. But the next instant the smile was gone and a cloud had come in its place.

"Did you find my slipper?" she asked eagerly.

"We haven't looked for it again," answered Miss Martin cheerfully.

"After breakfast every one will turn to and hunt, and I feel sure we shall find it. We will do our best, anyway, won't we, Mary Ellen?" And Miss Martin smiled into the downcast face.

"Yes, Miss Martin," returned Mary Ellen politely, but she continued to lace her boots without a glance in Lydia's direction. Plainly Mary Ellen still felt herself to be an injured person. There was even an idea in shrewd Miss Martin's mind that Mary Ellen found not a little enjoyment in her martyrdom.

After breakfast every one started in a different direction, but search and hunt as children, maids, and men did in every conceivable nook and corner, there was no trace of the missing slipper, and at last they were forced to give up the search, and admit that apparently it had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

"But it must be somewhere," Miss Martin repeated. "It didn't walk away by itself. I won't give up."

By dinner-time the fruitless search was over, and in the afternoon the children scattered to their play, Polly and Tom escorting Lydia and Roger in a tour of the vegetable garden, hoping thus to raise the drooping spirits of their visitors.

Miss Martin missed Mary Ellen, and going in search of her, found her in her bedroom, leaning on the window-sill from which the bronze slipper had taken its mysterious flight.

The little girl had nursed her sense of injury all day, and now had stolen away from the other children to spend a lonely afternoon. She was deep in thought, but not so absorbed that she did not hear Miss Martin enter the room, although she continued to gaze out of the window.

"I guess if I died, Lydia would feel badly," she was thinking. "I would be dressed all in white, with my hair in long curls, and I would hold one white rose in my hand. They would all come and look at me, and oh, how they would all cry! I guess Lydia would cry hardest of all. Perhaps, though, they wouldn't even let her in, she's been so mean to me." And a tear was all ready to roll down Mary Ellen's cheek, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"What do you see, sister Anne?" asked Miss Martin, gayly. "Are there any birds' nests in the tree?" She apparently did not notice the abused look Mary Ellen turned upon her as she sat down in the window beside the child.

"No, but there are two squirrels in the tree, big fellows. Here they come." And Mary Ellen pointed to the two gray squirrels climbing in swift darts higher and higher up the old trunk. "Aren't they cute?" she whispered, neglecting her own grievance for interest in the squirrels.

"Their hole is by that big branch. There goes one in now."

Mary Ellen and Miss Martin held their breath as the remaining squirrel pursued his way up the tree. When he reached the branch opposite their window, to their delight he turned and crept toward them. Motionless, they watched him leap from the tip of the swaying bough to the broad window-sill, where he sat upright, peering sharply about with his bright little eyes.

And then in a flurry, with every appearance of haste, Mr. Squirrel departed, for Mary Ellen had abruptly broken the spell. She had waved her arms wildly, and had called out in a loud voice:

"Miss Martin, I believe they took Lydia's slipper."

Miss Martin stared at Mary Ellen for a moment.

"I believe they did, Mary Ellen," said she slowly. "I never heard of such a thing before, but I do believe they did."

"The screen was out," went on Mary Ellen, "and they are great big squirrels, and the slippers are little. He came right up on the window-sill now; you saw him yourself, Miss Martin. Oh, how can we find out? Can't we find out?"

"Of course we can," said Miss Martin, as pleased as could be at the thought. "At least we can try. Come, Mary Ellen, won't it be a surprise if those squirrels are the thieves?" And she ran downstairs with Mary Ellen at her heels.

Five minutes later, when Mat placed the long ladder against the old maple and prepared to mount it, not a child was missing from the group at the foot of the tree. The news had spread like wildfire, and long legs and short legs had toiled desperately in those few moments for fear of missing some of the excitement.

All eyes were fixed on Mat as he paused on the ladder outside the squirrels' hole, and slowly and impressively drew on his baseball glove.

That had been his solution of the problem, when Miss Martin had feared that the squirrels would bite his hands.

In went the glove, and out it came with a chattering, scolding bunch of fur that Mat deposited at arm's length upon a branch. Next came a trembling gray ball, also to be placed carefully out of the way, and then, for the third time, Mat thrust in his hand and slowly drew out the missing "brown betty," scratched in places, filled with leaves, one b.u.t.ton gone, but Lydia's lost bronze slipper nevertheless.

The children shrieked and hopped up and down in their excitement as Mat dangled it in the air before their eyes. Lydia was smiling happily, but her face was not so bright as Mary Ellen's.

"Try to put the squirrels back in their hole, Mat," called Miss Martin; but with a flirt and a whisk the squirrels proved that they had other plans, and were out of sight in a twinkling among the green leaves.

Slowly Mat descended to earth, and handed the slipper to Miss Martin, who, in turn, put it in Mary Ellen's hands.

"You, Mary Ellen, must have the pleasure of giving it to Lydia," said she, "because you are really the one who found the hiding-place."

Lydia received the slipper from her friend with a shy smile.

"Thank you, Mary Ellen," said she. "I'm sorry I thought you took it. And now that it's scratched, you won't mind my wearing them so much, will you?"

And arm in arm, the girls moved off, both entirely satisfied with this handsome apology.

"Look at them, whispering together out there," said Miss Martin, half an hour later, to Mr. Blake, as she told him the story of the slippers.

"They are the best of friends now."

"Wouldn't it be a good thing if Mary Ellen had a pair of those fancy slippers for herself?" asked Mr. Blake. "If you say so, I'll take her down to the village now, and see what we can buy."

"Oh, that would be nice," answered Miss Martin, smiling at this good friend of her children. "She says she doesn't like them, but that is only because she hasn't any, I think. And we mustn't let Mary Ellen be too strong-minded. She is only nine years old, you know."

But Mary Ellen was not strong-minded in the least when she reached the village shoe shop. Indeed, she changed her mind three times before she finally decided upon a gay little pair of patent leather slippers with silver buckles.

"Now, what would you like, Roger?" asked kindly Mr. Blake of Lydia's faithful shadow, who had accompanied them as a matter of course.

"I'd like to go home with Lydia," answered Roger in all earnestness.

"I meant in the way of shoes," explained Mr. Blake. "Shiny rubbers, or high boots?"

But Roger selected a warm little pair of red felt slippers, in view, perhaps, of approaching winter weather.

The parting with Lydia was very hard. Roger wouldn't and couldn't understand why he must be separated from his friend, though Miss Martin explained it in the kindest and simplest way.

So Lydia, almost in tears herself, said good-bye, for Mr. Blake would not let her slip away when Roger's back was turned.

"We mustn't deceive him," said he. "He must learn he is among friends he can trust."