them from right to left.

She was fifty dollars short!

Christmas was approaching, and the Belding jewelry store was, of course,
rather busier than at other seasons. That was why Chet Belding was helping
out behind the counters. Out there, he kept a closer watch on the front
door than Laura, with her financial trouble, could.

Suddenly he darted down the long room to welcome a group of young people
who pushed open the jewelry-store door. They burst in with a hail of merry
voices and a clatter of tongues that drowned every other sound in the store
for a minute, although there were but four of them.

"Easy! Easy!" begged Mr. Belding, who was giving his attention to a
customer near the front of the store. "Take your friends back to Laura's
coop, Chetwood."

Hushed for the moment, the party drifted back toward Laura's desk. The
young girl was still too deeply engaged with the ledger and cash to look up
at first.

"What is the matter, Mother Wit?" demanded the taller of the two girls who
had just come in--a most attractive-looking maiden, whom Chet had at once
taken on his arm.

"Engine trouble," chuckled Laura's brother. "The old thing just won't
budge! Isn't that it, Laura?"

The tall youth--dark and delightfully romantic-looking, any girl would have