f use or ornament. The
jewels are valued at over L10,000.

We are reluctantly compelled, by the fact of your having
left unanswered three letters from Mr. Camperdown, Senior,
on the subject, to explain to you that if attention be
not paid to this letter, we shall be obliged, in the
performance of our duty, to take legal steps for the
restitution of the property.

We have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your ladyship's most obedient servants,

CAMPERDOWN & SON.

To Lady Eustace.
&c. &c.

A few days after it was sent old Mr. Camperdown got the letter-book
of the office and read the letter to John Eustace.

"I don't see how you're to get them," said Eustace.

"We'll throw upon her the burthen of showing that they have become
legally her property. She can't do it."

"Suppose she sold them?"

"We'll follow them up. L10,000, my dear John! God bless my soul! it's
a magnificent dowry for a daughter,--an ample provision for a younger
son. And she is to be allowed to filch it, as other widows filch
china cups, and a silver teaspoon or two! It's quite a common thing,
but I never heard of such a haul as this."

"It will be very unpleasant," said Eustace.

"And then she still goes about everywhere declaring that the Portray
property is her own. She's a bad lot. I knew it from the first. Of
course we shall have trouble." Then Mr. Eustace explained to the
lawyer that their best way out of it all would be to get the widow
married to some respectable husband. She was sure to marry sooner or
later,--so John Eustace said,--and any "decently decent" fellow would
be easier to deal with than she herself. "He must be very indecently
indecent if he is not," said Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Eustace did not
name Frank Greystock the barrister as the probable future decent
husband.

When Lizzie first got the letter, which she did on the day after the
visit at Fawn Court of which mention has been made, she put it by
unread for a couple of days. She opened it, not knowing the clerk's
handwriting, but read only the first line and the signature. For two
days she went on with the ordinary affairs and amusements of her
life, as though no such letter had reached her; but she was thinking
of it all the time. The diamonds were in her possession, and she had
had them valued by her old friend Mr. Benjamin--of the firm of Harter
and Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin had suggested that stones of such a value
should not be