le, if anything serious happens." Such
was Joseph's advice.

The women (angrily remembering that Mrs. Gallilee had spoken of sending
for the police) ridiculed the footman's cautious proposal--with one
exception. When the others ironically asked him if he was not accustomed
to the mistress's temper yet, Mrs. Gallilee's own maid (Marceline) said,
"What do we know about it? Joseph is the only one of us who has seen
her, since the morning."

This perfectly sensible remark had the effect of a breath of wind on a
smouldering fire. The female servants, all equally suspected of having
assisted Mr. Gallilee in making up his parcels, were all equally assured
that there was a traitress among them--and that Marceline was the
woman. Hitherto suppressed, this feeling now openly found its way to
expression. Marceline lost her temper; and betrayed herself as her
master's guilty confederate.

"I'm a mean mongrel--am I?" cried the angry maid, repeating the cook's
allusion to her birthplace in the Channel Islands. "The mistress shall
know, this minute, that I'm the woman who did it!"

"Why didn't you say so before?" the cook retorted.

"Because I promised my master not to tell on him, till he got to his
journey's end."

"Who'll lay a wager?" asked the cook. "I bet half-a-crown she changes
her mind, before she gets to the top of the stairs."

"Perhaps she thinks the mistress will forgive her," the parlour-maid
suggested ironically.

"Or perhaps," the housemaid added, "she means to give the mistress
notice to leave."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do!" said Marceline.

The women all declined to believe her. She appealed to Joseph. "What
did I tell you, when the mistress first sent me out in the carriage with
poor Miss Carmina? Didn't I say that I was no spy, and that I wouldn't
submit to be made one? I would have left the house--I would!--but for
Miss Carmina's kindness. Any other young lady would have made me feel
my mean position. _She_ treated me like a friend--and I don't forget it.
I'll go straight from this place, and help to nurse her!"

With that declaration, Marceline left the kitchen.

Arrived at the library door, she paused. Not as the cook had suggested,
to "change her mind;" but to consider beforehand how much she should
confess to her mistress, and how much she should hold in reserve.

Zo's narrative of what had happened, on the evening of Teresa's arrival,
had produced its inevitable effect on the maid's m