CHAPTER XI.

When the last of the guests had driven away, I went back into the inner hall and found

Samuel at the side table presiding over the brandy and soda water.

My lady and Miss Rachel came out of the drawing-room, followed by the two gentlemen, Mr. Godfrey,

had some brandy and soda water, and Mr. Franklin took nothing.

He sat down looking dead tired, the talking on this birthday occasion had, I suppose,

been too much for him.

My lady, turning round to wish them good night, looked hard at the wicked colonel's legacy,

shining in her daughter's dress.

Rachel, she asked, were you going to put your diamond tonight?

Miss Rachel was in high-good spirits, just in that humor for talking nonsense and perversely

persisting in it as if it was since, which you may sometimes have observed in young girls

when they are highly brought up at the end of an exciting day.

First, she declared she didn't know where to put the diamond.

Then she said, on her dressing table, of course, along with her other things.

Then she remembered that the diamond might take to shining of itself with its awful, mooney

light in the dark, and that would terrify her in the dead of night.

Then she bethought herself of an Indian cabinet, which stood in her sitting-room, and instantly

made up her mind to put the Indian diamond in the Indian cabinet for the purpose of

permitting two beautiful productions to admire each other.

Having let her little flow of nonsense run on as far as that point, her mother interposed

and stopped her.

...