"You foolish girl," I exclaimed, impatiently, "I didn't think you were so silly"——
But at that moment some one knocked at the door, and Kitty, wiping her eyes and smoothing her hair, ran to open it. It was only Mary, with some coal; but it interrupted our conversation, which could only after that be resumed by broken snatches, wherein I urgently impressed upon Kitty my certainty of the miniature's being in possession of one or other of the parties in the room at the time of its disappearance, and the entire contempt in which I held her superstitious theory in regard to it. Kitty's belief on that point, however, could not be shaken, and I grew weary of reiterating my arguments. At last I found an opportunity, when we were alone, to propound another question:
"What has been done about the riding-skirt?"
"Oh, Miss," exclaimed Kitty, uneasily, "why do you worry about those things now? It will make your head ache to talk; I know master wouldn't like it."
Kitty soon saw the futility of attempting to evade the matter; so she gave me a plain commonsensical statement of affairs, commencing from the moment I dashed down the avenue on Madge Wildfire's back; from which time it appeared, her difficulties began. Mrs. Roberts, after watching us out of the gate, the storm on her brow blackening every instant, turned away with a determined step, and entering the house, called to Kitty, saying she was in a great hurry for the dress she had given her to press off; she had important business at the Parsonage, and there was no time to lose.
"I don't think you'll find Mr. Shenstone home, ma'am," Kitty had volunteered. "I saw him passing along the road toward Norbury, when I was down at the lodge half an hour ago."
This information had appeared to give great disquietude to Mrs. Roberts, and in consequence of it, she had given up her plan of going out, and had retired misanthropically to her room, while Kitty had danced down to the kitchen in great glee, to communicate to Sylvie her narrow escape. But in half an hour, Mrs. Roberts' bell rang hastily, and Kitty apprehensively went up to answer it.
"I have concluded, after all," said that lady, "to go to the Parsonage, and leave a note for Mr. Shenstone if he is not in; so get my dress for me as quickly as you can."
"Yes, ma'am," Kitty had answered; but in passing the window, she had cast a look out. "It's most five o'clock now, ma'am, you'll be caught out in the dark; hadn't Thomas better run down with the note for you? Or maybe I could go?"
But Mrs. Roberts was quite firm. "No, she did not care to trust to any one but herself in this case." And again she desired her to get the dress with all haste. Haste she certainly did make, in getting to the kitchen and calling Sylvie into consultation; which measure, however, did not tend to elucidate in any great degree the problem that at present perplexed her brain. Sylvie was one of the "raving distracted" kind, and invariably lost her wits on occasion of their being particularly required, and the only assistance she attempted to render, in this trying emergency, was ejaculatory and interjectional condolence on the apparent hopelessness of the case. Kitty, in disgust, slammed the door in her face, put her hands to her head in a wild way for a moment, then bounded upstairs again.