"This is too gay; I must find a more sober garment. All the maid-servants in the house would recognize this immediately."
He went to one of the closets, searched there, and presently reappeared with a black silk dress. Rolling all up in a heap, he started at once with his prize, laughing inwardly at the figure he cut.
"If Lady Louise saw me now, or my lady mother, either, for that matter! What will Mildred and her maid say, I wonder, when they find burglars have been at work, and her matutinal toilet stolen?"
He bore the bundle straight to the chamber of his pretty runaway, and tapped at the door. It was discreetly opened an inch or two.
"Here are some clothes. When you are dressed, come out. I will wait in the passage."
"Thank yon," Miss Silver's soft voice said.
The young person whose adventures were so highly sensational doffed her velveteens and donned the dainty garments of Miss Mildred Kingsland.
All the things were beautifully made and embroidered, marked with the initials "M. K.," and adorned with the Kingsland crest.
"Miss Mildred Kingsland must be tall and slender, since her dress fits me so well. Ah, what a change even a black silk dress makes in one's appearance! He admired me—I saw he did, in jacket and pantiloons—what will be do, then, in this? Will he fall in love with me, I wonder?"
One parting peep in the glass, and she opened the door and stepped out before Sir Everard Kingsland, a dazzling vision of beauty.