With delicate fingers that shook a little, Jannet lifted the case from the drawer and laid it on the desk before her. As in a dream she took hold of the glistening strand and drew it up, letting the loops of pearls unfold from their long curling. What wonderful pearls they were! Jannet knew little about pearls, but she could appreciate beauty. This must be very valuable,--her mother's--hers!
Suddenly she lifted them against her cheek while quick tears came to her eyes. Oh, these had been on her mother's neck the last time that they were worn. Jannet ran to the picture. Yes, she had worn these when that photograph was taken. Why had Jannet not thought of that when she read the diary just now? She looked at the shimmering little pile that she was holding in two hands. Then she put them around her own neck. Twice they went around, coming just a little above the round neck of the dress that Jannet was wearing.
There was no one to see the pretty picture that was made by the blue-eyed girl with her golden hair, as she stood looking up at the other older girl so like her. How Jannet loved to feel the pearls on her neck. She would like to wear them all the time, she thought, but she sighed as she thought of their value. How many things might have happened to them in these years, and why had not her mother been able to find them? There they were, right in the drawer, as her mother must have put them away,--unless someone had taken them for a joke, or spite, and put them back later.
That thought troubled Jannet, but she was not right. A more peculiar circumstance than she could then imagine had hidden the pearls.
Should she tell her uncle about them? Jannet considered that for some time, while she carefully looped the pearls again and replaced them. No, she did not believe that she would. She would know her uncle a little better first before she made a confidant of him. And if she did tell him about the pearls, or the scrap of paper, for that matter, she would have somebody else present, too. What if Uncle Pieter should claim the necklace! Oh, he couldn't have the _heart_ to take anything of her mother's away from her--but she "guessed she wouldn't tell him just yet."
Jannet knew that she would not forget where the spring was, but after she closed the drawer again, she gave the surroundings a rub with her handkerchief, for want of a duster, and then closed the desk just in time, for there was a great rapping upon her door. It was Jan, drumming again on the panels and calling her.