Part 16

"Misery!" exclaimed Alexia, starting forward, "oh, where, where--"

"It isn't the pin," said Sally, holding that out, "but the head has flown off." She jumped off from the step and began to peer anxiously around in the dirt, all the girls crowding around and getting dreadfully in the way.

"What pin was it, Sally?" asked Polly, poking into a tuft of grass beneath the steps, "your blue one?"

"No; it was my best one--oh dear me!" Sally looked ready to cry, and turned away so that the girls couldn't see her face.

"Not the one your aunt gave you, Sally!" exclaimed Clem.

"Yes--yes." Sally sniffed outright now. "Oh dear! I put it in because--because--we were going to Silvia's--oh dear me!"

She gave up now, and sobbed outright.

"Don't cry, Sally," begged Polly, deserting her grass-tuft, to run over to her. "We'll find it." Alexia was alternately picking frantically in all the dust-heaps, and wringing her hands, one eye on the clock all the while.

"Oh, no, you won't," whimpered Sally. "It flew right out of my hand, and it's gone way off--I know it has--oh dear!" and she sobbed worse than ever.

"Perhaps one of those old hens will pick it up," suggested Lucy Bennett, pointing across the way to the station master's garden, where four or five fowl were busily scratching.

"Oh--oh!" Sally gave a little scream at that, and threw herself into Polly Pepper's arms. "My aunt's pin--and she told me--to be careful, and she won't--won't ever give me anything else, and now those old hens will eat it. Oh dear me! what shall I do?"

"How can you, Lucy, say such perfectly dreadful things?" cried Polly. "Don't cry, Sally. Girls, do keep on looking for it as hard as you can. Sally, do stop."

But Sally was beyond stopping. "She told--told me only to wear it Sundays, and with my best--best dress. Oh, do give me your handkerchief, Polly. I've left mine home."

So Polly pulled out her clean handkerchief from her coat pocket, and Sally wiped up her face, and cried all over it, till it was a damp little wad; and the girls poked around, and searched frantically, and Alexia, one eye on the clock, exclaimed, "Oh, girls, it's time for the train. Oh misery me! what shall we do?"

"And here it comes!" Lucy Bennett screamed.

"Stick on your hat, Sally, you've the pin part. Come, hurry up!" cried the others. And they all huddled around her.

"Oh, I can't go," began Sally.

"You must," said Clem; "we've telephoned back to Mrs. Horne we're coming. Do stick on your hat, Sally Moore."

Alexia was spinning around, saying over and over to herself, "I won't stay back--I won't." Then, as the train slowly rounded the long curve and the passengers emerged from the waiting-room, she rushed up to the knot of girls. "Go along, Sally Moore, and I'll stay and hunt for your old pin," just as some one twitched Sally's hat from her fingers and clapped it on her head.

"Oh my goodness me!" Alexia gave a little scream, and nearly fell backward. "Look--it's on your own head! Oh, girls, I shall die." She pointed tragically up to the hat, then gave a sudden nip with her long fingers, and brought out of a knot of ribbon, a gilt, twisted affair with pink stones. "You had it all the time, Sally Moore," and she went into peals of laughter.

"Well, do stop; everybody's looking," cried the rest of the girls, as they raced off to the train, now at a dead stop. Sally, with her hat crammed on her head at a worse angle than ever, only realized that she had the ornament safely clutched in her hand.

"Oh, I can't help it," exclaimed Alexia gustily, and hurrying off to get next to Polly. "Oh dear me!--whee--whee!" as they all plunged into the train.

When they arrived at Edgewood, there was a carriage and a wagonette drawn up by the little station, and out of the first jumped Silvia, and following her, a tall, thin girl who seemed to have a good many bracelets and jingling things.

"My cousin, Kathleen Briggs. She just came to-day," said Silvia, "while I was at school, and so mother thought it would be nice to have you girls out to supper, 'cause they're only going to stay till to-morrow. Oh, it's so fine that you've come! Well, come and get in. Polly, you're going in the carriage with Kathleen and me. Come on."

Alexia crowded up close behind.

"I'm going with Polly Pepper, this time," announced Sally, pushing in between; "Alexia always gets her."

"Well, she's my very dearest friend," said Alexia coolly, and working her long figure up close to Polly, as Silvia led her off, "so of course I always must go with her."

"Well, so she is our very dearest friend, too, Alexia Rhys," declared Clem, "and we're going to have her sometimes, ourselves." And there they were in a dreadful state, and Silvia's cousin, the new girl, to see it all!