my purse," replied Betty, who for a girl of her age had a good deal of money to spend quite as she pleased.

She opened her bag hastily and took out her purse. The purse was made of cut steel beads and, as Betty often said, "everything stuck to it!" Something clung to it now as she drew it forth, but neither Betty nor the shopgirl saw the dangling twist of tissue paper.

"And I'll buy that other one you are knitting," Betty hurried to say as she shook the purse and dug into it for the silver as well as the bills she had left after her morning's shopping. "I know that pretty blue will just look dear on a friend of mine."

She was busy with her money, and the English girl looked on hopefully. So neither saw the twist of tissue paper fly off the dangling fringe of beads and land with a soft little "plump" on the floor by the counter.

"Dear me!" breathed the shopgirl, in reply to Betty's promise, "I shall like that. It will help a good bit—and everything so high in this country. A dollar, as you say, goes hardly anywhere! And this one will fit you beautifully. You can see yourself."

"Of course it will. Do it up at once," cried the excited Betty. "Here is the money. Twelve dollars. I was afraid I didn't have enough. And be sure and keep that blue one for my friend. Maybe she will come for it herself, so give me a card or something so she can find the place. Shall she ask for you?"

"If you please," and the English girl ran to write a card. She brought it back with the neatly made parcel of the over-blouse and slipped it into Betty Gordon's hand. The latter thanked her and looked swiftly at the name the other had written.

"Good-bye, Ida Bellethorne," she said, smiling. "What a fine name! I hope I can sell some more blouses for you. I'll try."

The shopgirl made a little bow and the silvery bell jangled again as Betty opened the door. Betty looked back at the English girl, and the latter looked after Betty. They were both interested, much interested, the one in the other, and for reasons that neither suspected. Ida Bellethorne was not much like the girls Betty knew. She seemed even more sedate than the seniors at Shadyside where Betty had attended school with the Littell girls since the term had opened in September.

Ida Bellethorne was not, however, in any such happy condition as the girls Betty Gordon knew. She might have told the warm-hearted customer who had bought the over-blouse a story that would indeed have spurred Betty's interest to an even greater degree. But the English girl was naturally of a secretive disposition, and she was among strangers.

She turned back into the store when Betty had gone and the door, swinging shut, set the bell above it jingling again. A door opened at the end of the room and a tall, aggressive woman in a long, straight, gingham frock strode into the room. She had very black, heavy brows that met over her nose and this, with the thick spectacles she wore, gave her a very stern expression.

"What's the matter with that bell, Ida?" she demanded, in a sharp voice. "It seems to ring enough, but it doesn't ring any money into my cash-drawer as I can see."

"I sold my over-blouse out of the window, Mrs. Staples," said the girl.

"Humph! What else?"

"Er—what else? Why—why, she said she might come back for the one I am making."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Staples a second time. "I don't see as that will fill my cellar with coal. Couldn't you sell her anything else out of the shop?"

"She didn't say she wanted anything else," said Ida timidly.

"Oh! She didn't? You'll never make a sales-woman till you learn to sell 'em things they don't want but that the shop wants to sell. And I was foolish enough to tell you that you could have all you could make out of those blouses. Oh, well! I'm always being foolishly generous. Come! What's that on the floor? Pick it up."

Mrs. Staples was very near-sighted, yet nothing seemed to escape her observation. She pointed to the twist of white tissue paper on the floor which had been twitched out of Betty Gordon's bag. Ida stooped as she was commanded and got the paper. She was about to toss it into the waste-basket behind the counter when she realized that there was some hard object wrapped in the paper.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Staples, in her quick, stern way, as she saw Ida open the twist of paper.

"Why, I—Oh, Mrs. Staples! look what this is, will you?"

She held out in the palm of her hand a little, heart-shaped platinum locket with a tiny but very beautiful diamond set in the center of its face, and when she turned it over on the back was engraved the intertwined letters "E.G."

"For the land's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Staples, coming nearer and grabbing the locket out of Ida's hand. "Where did you get this?"

"Why, Mrs. Staples, you saw me pick it up."

"But how did it come there?"

"Oh, I know!" Ida Bellethorne cried, with sudden animation. "That girl stood right there. She opened her bag to get out her purse and she must have flirted it out to the floor."

"Humph!" said the storekeeper doubtfully.

"Give it to me, Mrs. Staples, and I'll run after her," cried the English girl anxiously.

"Humph!" This was Mrs. Staples' stock ejaculation and expressed a variety of emotions. Just now it expressed doubt. "And then you'd come back and tell me how thankful she was to get it, while maybe it doesn't belong to her at all. No," said Mrs. Staples, "let her come looking for it if she lost it."

"Oh!" murmured Ida Bellethorne doubtfully.

"Perhaps she will never guess she dropped it here."

"That's no skin off your nose," declared the vulgar shopwoman. "You've no rights in this thing, anyway. What's found on the floor of my shop is just as much mine as what's on the counter or in the trays behind the counter. I know my rights. Until whoever lost this thing comes in and proves property, it's mine."

"Oh, Mrs. Staples!" cried her employee. "Is that the law in this country? It doesn't seem honest."

"Humph! It's honest enough for me. And who are you, I'd like to know, a greenhorn fresh from the old country, trying to tell me what's honest and what ain't? If that girl comes back——"

"Yes, Mrs. Staples?"

"You sell her that other blouse if you want to, or anything else out of the shop. But you keep your mouth shut about this locket unless she asks for it. Understand? I won't have no tattle-tales about me; and if you don't learn when to keep your mouth open and when to keep it shut, I'll have no use at all for you in my shop. Remember that now!"

CHAPTER II

THE FRUITS OF TANTALUS

Betty Gordon had glanced hastily at her wrist watch as she went out of the little store. It was very near the minute appointed for her to meet Carter at the square. And she had forgotten to ask that girl, Ida Bellethorne (such an Englishy name!), how to find her rendezvous with the Littells' chauffeur.

She hesitated, tempted to run back. Had she done so she would have been in time to see Ida pick up the little locket that Uncle Dick had given Betty that very Christmas and which she carried in her bag because it seemed the safest place to treasure it while she was visiting. Her trunk was at Shadyside.

So it is that the very strangest threads of romance are woven in this world. And Betty Gordon had found before this that her life, at least, was patterned in a very wonderful way. Since she had been left an orphan and had found her only living relative, Mr. Richard Gordon, her father's brother, such a really delightful guardian the girl had been to so many places and her adventures had been so exciting that her head was sometimes quite in a whirl when she tried to think of all the happenings.

Uncle Dick's contracts with certain oil promotion companies made it impossible