Frightened half out of her wits, Lettie raised her hand to unclasp her necklace, when the flash of the diamonds on her finger caught the sharp eye of the thief.
"Golly," he said, "better "n I thought! I"ll trouble you to slip off that ring, too."
"Oh, no!" cried Lettie, "I can"t!"
"Oh, well! I can take it off myself," he said. "If it"s tight I"ll just take finger and all," and he took out and opened a great clasp knife.
Then Lettie saw the uselessness of protest, and with despair in her heart she drew off the ring and dropped it into the dirty hand extended to receive it. Instantly it followed the beads and watch into his pocket, and he stood aside, leaving the path open for her to pa.s.s, saying, with a horrid grin, "Now you may go, miss, and thank you kindly for your generosity."
Along that path Lettie flew till she reached one of the main avenues where people were constantly pa.s.sing, when she fell into a seat, wild-eyed, and almost fainting.
"What"s the matter?" asked a gruff policeman who came near. "What you been doing, miss?"
"Oh, go after the thief!" she cried; "I"ve been robbed."
"Which way did he go?" asked the man, evidently not believing her, the idea of being robbed in broad daylight, here in the park, appearing to seem absurd to him.
"Down that path," cried Lettie excitedly, "a great rough man with a big stick! Oh! do go! he has my gold beads and my diamond ring and"--
Whether the policeman did not care to encounter a rough thief with a big stick, or whether he really did not believe her, he here interrupted with:--
"I guess he has your sense, too! I think I better run you in--you"ll do fine for the crazy ward!"
"Oh, for Heaven"s sake, no!" cried Lettie, this new danger filling her with terror. "Never mind; let him go, but don"t arrest me. It would kill my mother, and me too!"
"Well, then, don"t talk so crazy," said he gruffly. "I don"t believe your story--nor n.o.body won"t, an" if it"s true, "n I should get him, I"d have to lock you up for a witness. Tell me where you live, "n I"ll see you safe home."
"Oh, no!" she cried, tears running down her face, "I"ll go right home.
My mother is sick, and it would kill her!"
The man was evidently touched by her distress.
"Well, miss, you just walk along, and I"ll keep you in sight to see that no more robbers get after you."
With that she was forced to be contented, and with all the strength left to her she hurried along the paths towards home, the policeman following at a little distance and keeping her in sight till she ran up the steps of her home and disappeared inside.
Lettie ran up to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on the bed, where she had a long cry, partly from nervous strain from the fright she had suffered, and partly for the loss of her treasures.
"I was a fool!" she said bitterly. "Mother always told me it was unsafe to wear jewelry in the streets and to go into those solitary paths in the park; but I didn"t believe her. I was a fool, and I"m well paid for it! I"ll never tell her--never!
"And I shall never dare to let father know, either," she went on later; "he"d scour the world to find that man, and I should have to be locked up as a witness,"--she shuddered,--"I"d rather lose everything."
A good deal subdued by this experience, she almost decided to give up the particular thing which had given her her liberty for the day,--the moonlight sail on the river. But after hours, when she had calmed down and decided that she would keep her experiences and her losses a secret from everybody, the thought of the great temptation again stirred her, and she finally resolved to carry out her plan and go.
"It"s likely," she said to herself, "that I"ll never have another chance to do as I like,--not for years, anyway,--and I"ll have the good of this one." Having come to this decision, Lettie found herself hungry, for she had been too excited to take any luncheon at the usual hour. She accordingly went down to the pantry where the cook had spread out the morning"s baking; there was a goodly array of pies and cakes and other good things cooling on the shelves, and Lettie thought herself in great luck.
"Now I"ll have a good lunch," she said to herself, "and no bread and b.u.t.ter, either! I hate bread and b.u.t.ter!"
She helped herself to several little cakes which cook made particularly nice, and with them she ate part of a jar of marmalade which she opened for the purpose; next she took a tart or two, and then turned her attention to the row of pies on another shelf. Looking them over carefully, she chose her favorite, a custard pie. "Now I won"t eat any old crust, as mother makes me," she said. So she took a spoon and began on the contents of the pie, thus demolishing, I regret to say, a whole pie. Then, calmly dipping into a pan of milk, taking cream and all, she drank a gla.s.s of that, and, feeling fully satisfied, she left the pantry, and returned to her room to prepare for the evening.
"I guess I"ll wear this silk dress after all," she said to herself, for she was invited to stay all night with Stella after the sail.
"I"ll have to come home through the streets in the morning, and if the white one gets soiled it won"t look very nice; and besides, I want mother to see that I can take care of my clothes myself."
So, wearing her pretty silk dress and delicate shoes, and carrying another pair of gloves,--for she had lost the white ones in the excitement of the morning,--she started out, leaving word with the servants that she should stay with Stella all night.
She reached the house safely, and was warmly welcomed by Stella, and in the excitement of planning and talking over the sail of the evening she almost forgot, for a time, the unpleasant affair of the morning.
"It"s a pity you wore that pretty new dress," said Stella, who was clad in a sailor suit of dark wool, for the boating; "I"m afraid you"ll spoil it,--a boat"s a dirty place."
"I guess I shan"t hurt it," said Lettie.
"I wish you"d wear one of my woolen suits," said Stella; "I hate to see a pretty dress spoiled, and that couldn"t be hurt."
"No, indeed!" said Lettie; "I couldn"t wear any one"s dress, and if that gets spoiled--why, I"ll have to get another," she added proudly, though she knew in her heart that her mother could not afford another, that season.
"Well," said Stella, "you must of course do as you choose."
The boating party consisted, besides Stella and Lettie, and Stella"s cousin Maud, of Stella"s brother and two of his friends. These two young men it was to whom Lettie"s mother had objected. They were rather wild fellows, sons of rich men, and not obliged to do anything, given up to sports and rather noisy pranks in the city. They were intimate with Stella"s brother, who was one of their kind also.
The moon rose about nine o"clock that evening, and at that hour the gay party took their way to the little boathouse, where they embarked in a small sailboat which was waiting for them.
The young men understood the management of a boat, and for a time all went well. They talked and laughed and sang, and enjoyed the moonlight and the rapid motion, and Lettie thought she never had such a lovely time in her life.
After awhile the spirit of teasing began to show itself among the boys. They liked to frighten the girls, as thoughtless boys often do, and after such harmless pranks as spattering water over them, to hear their little screams of protest, they fell to the more dangerous, but very common, play of rocking the boat, threatening to upset it.
The girls, resolved not to be frightened, for a long time did not cry out, and this drew the boys on to greater exertions, determined to make them scream and beg. At last the thing happened that so often does happen to reckless boys,--a sudden puff of wind caught the sail, the boat lurched, and in a moment the whole party were struggling in the water.
Thoroughly frightened now, the boys, who could all swim, at first struck out for the sh.o.r.e, which was at some distance. Then, recalled to their senses by the cries of the girls, two of them turned back to their aid. Whether they would have reached the sh.o.r.e with their frightened and unmanageable burdens is uncertain, but, a tugboat happening to come along, they were all picked up and carried to a dock a mile or more below.
There, after waiting a half hour, drenched and chilled all through, while the boys tried in vain to get a carriage,--for by this time it was very late,--the party took a street car, which carried them up town, but not near Stella"s, and they had to wait another half hour at a crossing for another car.
It was two o"clock in the morning before Lettie, with Stella and her brother, reached the house, a wretched, draggled-looking, and very cross party, all without hats,--for these had been lost in the river,--and Lettie, her fine silk dress a ruin, her delicate shoes a shapeless ma.s.s from which the water squirted as she walked.
By breakfast time Lettie, who was a delicate girl, was in a high fever, and the doctor, who was hastily called in, decided that she was threatened with pneumonia. Lettie"s mother was notified, and hurried down, and, bundled up in many wraps, Lettie was conveyed in an ambulance to her home and her own bed, where she remained for weeks, battling for her life, delirious much of the time, and living over in fancy the horrors of the day she had had her own way.
Some weeks later, after her recovery, her mother, one morning, said quietly, "Lettie, let us count up the cost of your doing as you liked."
Lettie trembled, but her mother went on.
"There"s your dress and hat and shoes ruined and lost in the river--consequently the loss of your visit to your Aunt Joe; there"s your illness, which deprived you of the school-closing festivities; and the doctor"s bill, which took all the money I had saved for our trip to the seash.o.r.e this summer."
She was going on, but Lettie, now thoroughly penitent, suddenly resolved to make a clean breast of all her losses, and have the thing over.
"Oh, mother!" she cried, burying her face in her mother"s lap, "that isn"t all my losses; I must tell you, I can"t bear it any longer alone," and then with sobs and tears she told the dismal story of the robbery.
"Lettie," said her mother, "I knew all that the very day it happened.
After you had gone to Stella"s the policeman came to the house to see if you had told him the truth. When he told me what you had said I went to your room and discovered the loss."