Daphne Heritage."
"Well," commented Mrs. Stimpson, while poor Ruby's tears began to flow afresh, "that is certainly a letter which I could show to anybody. Though I notice she doesn't say anything about being grieved to part with anyone but Ruby. A deliberate slight to the rest of us! And then the meanness of turning us out without the slightest return for all we've done for her! It does show such petty ingratitude!"
"Easy on, Mater!" said Clarence. "She don't seem to have let us go away quite empty-handed after all. I mean to say there's a box or something over there that I fancy I've seen before in the Palace."
He went up to examine it as he spoke. It was an oblong case, rather deeper and squarer than a backgammon box, covered with faded orange velvet and fitted with clasps and corners of finely wrought silver set with precious stones.
Inside were the emerald and opal "halma" board and ruby and diamond pieces, and with them a slip of parchment with Daphne's handwriting. "I thought perhaps," she had written, "you might care to have this. Princess Rapunzelhauser tells me she is afraid two of the men are missing, but I hope she is mistaken and they are really all there.—D."
"I shall never play with them!" declared Ruby breaking down once more. "I—I couldn't bear to, without Her!"
"Of course you will never play with them, my dear," said her mother, "they are far too valuable for that."
A very inadequate impression of Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson's strength of character must have been given if anyone expects that this gift would cause her the slightest degree of shame or contrition; on the contrary, it only served to justify her in her own eyes—not that she needed any justification—for having appropriated those two pieces. She had merely anticipated—and nothing would be easier than to put them back in the box without being observed.
"A magnificent present!" pronounced Mr. Stimpson. "Really what I should call very handsome indeed of her. If we ever had to sell this set they'd fetch a colossal sum—here—simply colossal!"
"And a minute ago, Mater," said Clarence, "you accused her of being mean!"