Cliffdale is the place he was shipping her to for her health."
"Never!" cried Bobby.
"Oh, Bob! Is that so?" gasped Betty.
Bob burst into open laughter. "That's a good one on you and on your friend, Ida," he declared. "If she has gone to meet her aunt up in New York State she'll meet a horse instead. How's that for a joke?"
Betty Gordon shook her head without smiling. "I don't see the joke at all," she said. "Poor Ida! She will be sadly disappointed. And she has lost her position here with Mrs. Staples. We could see that Mrs. Staples was angry because she went away."
"Why," cried Bobby, likewise sympathetic, "I think it is horrid—actually horrid! You needn't laugh, Bob Henderson."
"Shucks!" returned the boy. "I can't cry over it, can I? Of course it is too bad the girl has made such a mistake. But our weeping won't help her."
"No," confessed Bobby, "I suppose that is so."
"And our weeping won't find my locket," sighed Betty. "Dear me! If I did drop it in Stone's place I hope they have saved it for me."
But the locket was not to be found in that shop, either. Nor in the two others which Betty Gordon had visited the previous day. This indeed was a
