umour, his heart
was so linked to the chain, that he could not detach himself from the
thoughts of it, which invaded him at short intervals in such qualms as
effectually spoiled his appetite, and hindered his digestion.

He revolved within himself the circumstances of his disaster, and, in
canvassing all the probable means by which the chain would be stolen,
concluded that the deed must have been done by some person in the family,
who, in consequence of having access to his daughter's chamber, had
either found the drawer left open by her carelessness and neglect, or
found means to obtain a false key, by some waxen impression; for the
locks of the escritoire were safe and uninjured. His suspicion being
thus confined within his own house, sometimes pitched upon his workmen,
and sometimes upon his wife, who, he thought, was the more likely to
practise such finesse, as she considered Wilhelmina in the light of a
daughter-in-law, whose interest interfered with her own, and who had
often harangued to him in private on the folly of leaving this very chain
in the young lady's possession.

The more he considered this subject, he thought he saw the more reason to
attribute the damage he had sustained to the machinations of his spouse,
who, he did not doubt, was disposed to feather her own nest, at the
expense of him and his heirs, and who, with the same honest intention,
had already secreted, for her private use, those inconsiderable jewels
which of late had at different times been missing. Aroused by these
sentiments, he resolved to retaliate her own schemes, by contriving means
to visit her cabinet in secret, and, if possible, to rob the robber of
the spoils she had gathered to his prejudice, without coming to any
explanation, which might end in domestic turmoils and eternal disquiet.

While the husband exercised his reflection in this manner, his innocent
mate did not allow the powers of her imagination to rest in idleness and
sloth. Her observations touching the loss of the chain were such as a
suspicious woman, biassed by hatred and envy, would naturally make. To
her it seemed highly improbable, that a thing of such value, so carefully
deposited, should vanish without the connivance of its keeper, and
without much expense of conjecture, divined the true manner in which it
was conveyed. The sole difficulty that occurred in the researches of her
sagacity, was to know the gallant who had been favoured with such a
pledge