eant or to me. With her lips closed, and
her arms folded in the light garden cloak which she had wrapped round
her on coming into the air, there she stood, as still as a statue,
waiting for her daughter to appear.

In a minute more, Miss Rachel came downstairs--very nicely dressed in
some soft yellow stuff, that set off her dark complexion, and clipped
her tight (in the form of a jacket) round the waist. She had a smart
little straw hat on her head, with a white veil twisted round it. She
had primrose-coloured gloves that fitted her hands like a second skin.
Her beautiful black hair looked as smooth as satin under her hat. Her
little ears were like rosy shells--they had a pearl dangling from each
of them. She came swiftly out to us, as straight as a lily on its stem,
and as lithe and supple in every movement she made as a young cat.
Nothing that I could discover was altered in her pretty face, but her
eyes and her lips. Her eyes were brighter and fiercer than I liked to
see; and her lips had so completely lost their colour and their smile
that I hardly knew them again. She kissed her mother in a hasty and
sudden manner on the cheek. She said, "Try to forgive me, mamma"--and
then pulled down her veil over her face so vehemently that she tore it.
In another moment she had run down the steps, and had rushed into the
carriage as if it was a hiding-place.

Sergeant Cuff was just as quick on his side. He put Samuel back, and
stood before Miss Rachel, with the open carriage-door in his hand, at
the instant when she settled herself in her place.

"What do you want?" says Miss Rachel, from behind her veil.

"I want to say one word to you, miss," answered the Sergeant, "before
you go. I can't presume to stop your paying a visit to your aunt. I can
only venture to say that your leaving us, as things are now, puts an
obstacle in the way of my recovering your Diamond. Please to understand
that; and now decide for yourself whether you go or stay."

Miss Rachel never even answered him. "Drive on, James!" she called out
to the coachman.

Without another word, the Sergeant shut the carriage-door. Just as he
closed it, Mr. Franklin came running down the steps. "Good-bye, Rachel,"
he said, holding out his hand.

"Drive on!" cried Miss Rachel, louder than ever, and taking no more
notice of Mr. Franklin than she had taken of Sergeant Cuff.

Mr. Franklin stepped back thunderstruck, as well he might be. The
coachman, not knowing what