# Betty Gordon at Boarding School/Chapter 12

CHAPTER XII
THE LOST TREASURE
"Diamonds," whispered Betty to Norma Guerin, who seemed depressed. "She wears three diamond rings and one sapphire and a square-cut emerald. And her wrist-watch is platinum set with diamonds."
Mrs. Eustice gazed at the soft little hand she held for a few moments, then released it. She said nothing.
"Ah, your mother wrote me of you," was the principal's greeting to the Littell girls. "You look like her, Louise. And Bobby is much like her father as I remember him."
"This is Betty Gordon," said the loyal Bobby, indicating her chum. "Mother wrote about her, too, didn't she?"
"Indeed she did," assented Mrs. Eustice warmly. "I must have a special talk with Betty soon, for she has an ambitious program before her. And here are Libbie and Frances from the state I remember so affectionately from girlhood visits there."
But it was Norma and Alice Guerin, sensitive ​Norma and shy Alice, who were welcomed most cordially after all.
"So you are Elsie Guerin's daughters!" said the principal, putting an arm around Norma and holding her hand out to Alice. "My own dear mother taught your mother when she was a little girl with braids like yours. And your dear grandmother used to give the most wonderful parties. People talk about them to this day. It was at her Rose Ball I first met my husband. You must go up the north road some day and see the old Macklin house."
Norma and Alice fairly glowed as they went back to their rooms with the other girls. Ada Nansen had heard, and she was regarding them with evident respect.
Norma and Alice might have been uneasy had they heard Ada's comment when she and Ruth were once more in their own rooms.
"They must have money," argued Ada, "though I never saw such ordinary clothes. Giving balls and parties in the lavish Southern style costs, let me tell you. Probably they have some fine family jewels in that shabby trunk."
"I'll tell you what I think," said Ruth Gladys wisely. "I think the money is all used up. Probably they're here as charity pupils for old friendship's sake."
​This speculation was duly stored up in Ada Nansen's mind to be brought out when needed.
After dinner Miss Anderson played for them to dance in the broad hall, but every one was tired from train journeys, and at nine o'clock they voluntarily sought their rooms.
"Get into a kimono and brush your hair in here," hospitably suggested Betty, and Bobby seconded her by flinging the suitcases under the beds. All of the rooms were fitted with pretty day-beds so that a cover quickly transformed them into couches and the bedrooms into sitting rooms.
Four gay-colored kimono-wrapped figures came pattering in presently and curled up comfortably on the beds. Norma and Alice were the last to arrive, and when they did come they mystified their friends by prancing in silently and waltzing gaily about the room.
"Oh, girls!" they chortled when they had tired of this performance, "What do you think?"
"We couldn't help hearing," said Norma deprecatingly.
"Laura Bennett called us in," declared Alice.
"Don't sing a duet," commanded Bobby sternly. "What are you talking about? One at a time. You tell, Norma."
"Laura Bennett called us into her room," obediently recited Norma. "Miss Lacey was talking to Ada and Ruth. You could hear every word ​without listening—that is without eavesdropping—you know what I mean. Mrs. Eustlce must have spoken to Miss Lacey, because she told the girls they would have to send all the trunks home except one apiece. Ada must put all her jewelry in the school safe and at the Christmas holidays she is to take it home and leave it there. Both of them have to wear their hair down or in a knot—you know they have it waved now and done up just like my mother's. And Miss Lacey is to go over their clothes to-morrow and tell 'em what they can keep!"
"I'm glad some one has some sense!" was Bobby's terse comment.
Something in Norma's face told Betty that she would like to speak to her alone, so half an hour later when the girls had dispersed for the night, she made a bent nail file an excuse to go to the Guerins' room.
"I was hoping you'd come, Betty," said Norma gratefully. "We have to put out the lights at ten, don't we? I'll try to talk fast. You see, Alice and I want to tell you something."
A fleecy old-fashioned shawl lay across the bed and Norma flung this about Betty's shoulders.
"Alice's kimono is flannel and so is mine," she explained in answer to the protest. "You never met Grandma Macklin, did you, Betty?"
​"No-o, I'm sure I never did," responded Betty thoughtfully. "Does she live with you?"
"Yes. But while you were at the Peabodys she was visiting her half-sister in Georgia," explained Norma. "She is mother's mother, you know."
"What was it Mrs. Eustice said about her?" questioned Betty with interest. "Did she live near here? Was that when your mother went to this school?"
"It was a day school then, you know," put in the laconic Alice.
"Yes, and grandma lived in a perfectly wonderful big house," said Norma. "It must be fully five miles from here. Uncle Goliath, an old colored man, used to drive her over every day and call for her in the afternoon. Mother has always been determined Alice and I should graduate from Shadyside."
"Well then, it's lovely she is to have her wish," commented Betty brightly.
"Oh, goodness, I don't see that we're ever going to have four years," confessed Norma. "If you knew what they've given up at home to send us for this term! And though we wouldn't say anything, mother and grandma worked so hard to get us ready, Alice and I are positively ashamed of our clothes. You see, Betty, I think when you're poor, you ought to go where you'll meet other poor girls. Alice and I ought to have ​entered the Glenslde high school, I think. But when I said something like that to dad he said it would break mother's heart. But if she knew how hard it was to be poor and to have to rub elbows with girls who have everything——"
"I don't think you ought to feel that way," urged Betty. "You have something that no amount of money could buy for you, and no lack can take away—birth and breeding. And the training your mother wants you to have is worth sacrificing other things for. Ever since I heard Mrs. Eustice talk I feel that I know what makes her school really successful."
A soft tap fell on the door.
"Lights go off in ten minutes, girls," said Miss Lacey pleasantly.
"Do you know, Betty," confessed Norma hurriedly, "dad has lost quite a lot of money lately. He's such a dear he never can bear to press payment of a bill and half the county owes him. And a friend got him to invest what he did have in some silly stock that never amounted to a hill of beans, as the farmers say. So it's no wonder the Macklin fortune worries mother whenever she thinks of it; a family like ours could use money so easily."
"Most families are like that," said Betty, with a flash of Uncle Dick's humor. "I didn't like to ​ask, Norma, but your grandmother must have been wealthy."
"She was," confirmed Norma. "Not fabulously so, of course. But even in those days when lavish hospitality was common Grandma Macklin was famous for the way she ran the estate. She was left a widow when a very young woman, and mother was her only child. Her husband didn't believe women knew very much about money, and he left his fortune mostly in bonds and jewels—the most magnificent diamonds in three counties, grandma says hers were. And she had a rope of emeralds and two strings of exquisitely matched pearls. Besides, there were rose topazes and lovely cameos and oh, goodness, I couldn't repeat the list; Alice and I have been brought up on the story.
"Well, about the time mother had finished school, Grandma Macklln came to the end of her bank account. Several mortgages had been paid her in gold, and she kept this money with the jewelry and a lot of solid silver in a little safe in her room. Foolish, of course, but she says others did it in those days, too. She meant to take the gold and some of the diamonds to her lawyer and get a check which would take her and mother around the world on a luxurious cruise. And the day before she had the appointment with Mr. Davies——"
​A soft blackness settled down over the girls like a blanket. The electric lights had gone out!
"Move closer, and I'll finish," whispered Norma.
Betty snuggled up between the two, and shivered a little with excitement.
"The day before she was to drive to Edentown," repeated Norma, "a band of Indians from the reservation in the next state came through on their annual tramping trip and walked in on poor little grandma as she sat at her mahogany secretary turning over her jewels and counting her beautiful shining gold. Every darkey on the place fled in terror, and those rascally Indians simply scooped up everything in sight and locked grandma and mother in the room!"
"Couldn't any one stop them?" demanded Betty eagerly. "Surely a band of Indians could have been easily traced. Didn't any one try?"
"Oh, they tried," admitted Norma. "That's the maddening part. Suppose I told you, Betty, that I know where grandma's inheritance is this minute?"