There lay the six brooches--brooches indeed no longer--for not a pin was there to boast of among them! "Six pinless brooches!" said grandmother drily, taking them up one after another.

"Six pinless brooches--the property of one careless little girl.
Little girls are changed from the days when I was young! I shall take these six brooches to be mended at once, Molly, but what I shall do with them when they are mended I cannot as yet say." She put them all in the little box from which three of them had been taken, and with it in her hand went quietly out of the room.

Molly, by this time almost in tears, remained behind for a moment to whisper to Sylvia, "Is grandmother dreadfully angry, do you think, Sylvia?
I am so frightened, I wish I wasn't going out with her." "Then you should not have been so horribly careless.

I never knew any one so careless," said Sylvia, in rather a Job's comforter tone of voice.
"Of course you must tell grandmother how sorry you are, and how ashamed of yourself, and ask her to forgive you." "Grandmother dear," said Molly, her irrepressible spirits rising again when she found herself out in the pleasant fresh air, sitting opposite grandmother in the carriage, bowling along so smoothly--grandmother having made no further allusion to the unfortunate brooches--"Grandmother dear, I am so sorry and so ashamed of myself.

Will you please forgive me ?" "And what then, my dear ?" said grandmother.
"I will try to be careful; indeed I will.