"You are not allowing her to presume on her being a lady, I do trust, Cicely?" Sir Arthur said gravely. "You keep her in her place? If she has undertaken to be a children's nurse, she should learn to occupy the position usually occupied by children's nurses, and only that."
Cicely lifted lovely pleading eyes to his censorious blue ones.
"I am afraid you will think me all sorts of dreadful things, but I could not keep Christina exclusively in the nursery. When you see her, you will understand what I mean. She and Baba are a good deal with me, and at Bramwell they will probably be with me still more." There was a gentle dignity about her manner, which made even the outrageous autocrat before her, understand that he had touched the limit of interference. Cicely might appear to be sweet and yielding; and, indeed, she was almost invariably more inclined to yield her own will, than to struggle to attain it, but there was no lack of character in her small person, and when she had once determined that a course of action was expedient or right, nothing had power to turn her from that course.
"Your cousin Ellen and I will enjoy spending Christmas with you very much," Sir Arthur said, beating his retreat with dignity. "I have no doubt I can manage to be out of London for three days, and I should like to see Bramwell again. John and I had many talks about the alterations and improvements he carried out there."
Cicely had a vivid recollection of her husband's whimsical description of Sir Arthur's well-meant, but annoying, suggestions about those same alterations, and she was conscious again of a giggle choked on its way to birth, but she contrived to make a suitable reply, adding hastily—
"And when you were in town in November, you told me you had some business with Scotland Yard about a pendant. I do hope the police have found the jewel for you."
"Alas! no. It is altogether a most singular thing about that pendant. I told you it was a family heirloom, a magnificent emerald with three letters A.V.C. twisted together above it."
"Yes?"
"The police had a very strange clue the other day, a clue that, so far, has come to nothing. A pawnbroker in a back street in Chelsea, came forward, and stated that a pendant, answering in every particular to the stolen one, had been offered to him for sale, a few weeks ago."
"Then why didn't he send for the police, and give the person offering it for sale into custody?" Cicely asked.