Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/261

 "Poppet isn 't the type of child whose love could be forced," remarked Gaylor, to Rose's delight. "About this hairpin, though. You might as well tell me who is the 'other person,' if not Miss Verney."

"Why, if you must know, it's Kate Craigie. I hope you haven't got any horrid, secret reason for wanting to find out? You see, it's just not impossible that a hairpin dropped here by Lady Hereward or Kate might have stuck in a rug, in spite of all the sweepings; but Kate was so cross with my little Poppet for letting out things to you that she's never been inside the house since the afternoon her poor ladyship was done away with."

"I didn't say I'd found the hairpin here," Gaylor remarked. "But I'm sure those hairpins don't match Kate Craigie's hair, since you say women are so keen on a match in such things. Hers is almost black. Why should she choose them, if Miss Verney wouldn't?"

That s different," Rose informed him. "Miss Verney's hair is one of her greatest beauties, and she must know that, though she's not a vain young lady. Gilt hairpins are as cheap to buy as dark ones. She'd either be careless, and get black, or else she'd have yellow of the right shade, nothing in between; do you see? But Kate, being about her mistress's room a great deal, if she was wanting a hairpin would stick in one of her ladyship's, or even help herself to a handful if she'd forgotten to buy her own sort. No harm