their Aunt Lu so worried.

"Mother, what's an engagement ring?" asked Sue, in a whisper, as Aunt Lu
kept on looking among the things on the table, hoping her diamond might
have dropped off there. Then she looked on the floor.

"An engagement ring, my dear," said Sue's mother, "is a ring that means
a promise. A very dear friend of Aunt Lu's has promised to marry her,
and he gave her the diamond ring to be a sort of reminder--a most
beautiful present. Now we must help her find it."

"It can't be far away," Mrs. Brown said to her sister. "You were not out
of this room, were you?"

"No, I've been here ever since I began to pick the meat out of the
lobster, and I had my ring on then."

"Oh, then we'll find it," said Bunny's mother.

But it was not so easy to do that as it was to say it. They looked all
over the kitchen--on the floor, under the table, among the dishes, the
pots and pans--but no diamond ring could be found. Papa Brown came in
from the front porch, where he had been reading the evening paper, and
he helped search, but it seemed of no use.

"Oh, where can my beautiful ring have dropped?" asked Aunt Lu, and Sue
thought she saw signs of tears in her aunt's eyes.

"Perhaps it fell into the lobster salad," suggested Mr. Brown.