in this trunk?" Mrs. Mackenzie stepped forward and declared, and the
nurse vowed upon her honour, and the lady's-maid asserted really now
upon honour too, that there was nothing but what was most strictly
necessary in that trunk, to which affidavits, when Clive applied to his
wife, she gave a rather timid assent.

"Where are the keys of that trunk?" Upon Mrs. Mackenzie's exclamation
of "What nonsense!" Clive, putting his foot upon the flimsy oil-covered
box, vowed he would kick the lid off unless it was instantly opened.
Obeying this grim summons, the fluttering women produced the keys, and
the black box was opened before him.

The box was found to contain a number of objects which Clive pronounced
to be by no means necessary to his wife's and child's existence.
Trinket-boxes and favourite little gimcracks, chains, rings and pearl
necklaces, the tiara poor Rosey had worn at court--the feathers and the
gorgeous train which had decorated the little person--all these were
found packed away in this one receptacle; and in another box, I am sorry
to say, were the silver forks and spoons (the butler wisely judging
that the rich and splendid electrotype ware might as well be left
behind)--all the silver forks, spoons, and ladles, and our poor old
friend the cocoa-nut tree, which these female robbers would have carried
out of the premises.

Mr. Clive Newcome burst out into fierce laughter when he saw the
cocoa-nut tree; he laughed so loud that baby woke, and his mother-in-law
called him a brute, and the nurse ran to give its accustomed quietus
to the little screaming infant. Rosey's eyes poured forth a torrent of
little protests, and she would have cried yet more loudly than the other
baby, had not her husband, again fiercely checking her, sworn with a
dreadful oath, that unless she told him the whole truth, "By heavens
she should leave the house with nothing but what covered her." Even the
Campaigner could not make head against Clive's stern resolution; and the
incipient insurrection of the maids and the mistresses was quelled by
his spirit. The lady's-maid, a flighty creature, received her wages and
took her leave: but the nurse could not find it in her heart to quit her
little nursling so suddenly, and accompanied Clive's household in the
journey upon which those poor folks were bound. What stolen goods were
finally discovered when the family reached foreign parts were found
in Mrs. Mackenzie's trunks, not in her daughter's