Part 41 (2/2)

”I've lost my pearl-rimmed locket!” sobbed Jinty. ”Ah Lon asked to look at it this morning the first thing; she always does, you know. And I took it off, and then Mike pecked my legs and Ah Lon's so hard that we both ran away screaming, and I must have dropped the locket--and it's gone!”

”Gone! That can't be! Unless--unless----” Mrs. Barbara hesitated, and Jinty knew they were thinking the same thing. ”Have you told Ah Lon, deary?”

”I did this afternoon, and she cried. I never saw her cry before!”

”Ah, jes' so! You can't trust they foreigners. But I'll sift this business, I shall!” vigorously said Mrs. Barbara.

But for days the disappearance of the locket was a mystery. In Mrs.

Barbara's mind there was no doubt that Ah Lon had taken the coveted picture and concealed it in safe hiding. Jinty almost thought so too, and a gloom crept over Old Studley. ”I dursn't tell the master, he's that wrapped up in the wicked little yellow-faced creature. I'll step over to the parson and tell he,” Mrs. Barbara decided, and arraying herself in her Sunday best, she sallied forth to the vicarage.

As she crossed the little common shouts and laughter and angry chatter fell on her ear.

A group of schoolboys, the parson's four little sons, were closing in round a dark object.

”Why, if that isn't our Mike! I never knew the bird to go outside of Old Studley before. What----”

”Oh, Mrs. Barbara, do come along here!” Reggie, the eldest of the four, turned his head and beckoned her.

[Sidenote: Mike's Mishap]

”Here's a nice go! We've run your Mike in, and see his fury, do! Our Tommy was looking for birds' eggs in the Old Studley hedge, and he saw a s.h.i.+ne of gold and pulled out this! And Mike chased him, madly pecking his legs, out here to the common. And now he's fit to fly at me because I've got his stolen goods. Look, do!”

Reggie doubled up with yells of laughter, and Mike, in a storm of fury, shrieked himself hoa.r.s.e.

But Mrs. Barbara stood dumb.

In a flash the truth had come to her.

Mike, not poor Ah Lon, was the thief. She tingled all over with remorseful shame as she crept home with the locket in her hand.

”Oh, and we thought you had stolen it, Ah Lon dear!” Jinty confessed, with wild weeping; but Ah Lon was placidly smoothing the precious little picture. It was enough for her that it had come back. ”Grandpapa must know; he must be told!” went on Jinty, determined not to spare herself.

When the professor heard the whole story he was very quiet indeed. But a few days after he went up to London on a little visit, and when he returned he called Jinty into the study.

”This,” he said, opening a case, ”will perhaps make up to the friendless little stranger for your unjust suspicions!” He handed Jinty a pearl-edged locket with a painting of a Chinese lady's head. ”Chinese faces are so similar that it may serve as a remembrance of her own mother. And this, Jinty dearling, will keep alive in your memory one of our Lord's behests!” From another case came a dainty silver bangle inside of which Jinty read, with misty eyes, the engraved words: _Judge not!_

But already their meaning was engraved on her heart; and--as time won Ah Lon's shy affections--she and the little Chinese stranger grew to be as true sisters under the roof of Old Studley.

[Sidenote: The artistic life sometimes leaves those who follow it largely dependent upon the stimulus and the aid which the devotion of others may supply. Rembrandt was a case in point, and the story of his sister's life is worth recalling.]

Rembrandt's Sister

A n.o.ble Life Recalled

BY

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