“What vile thing? The viler it is, the more likely she is to have done it.”
“Oh no, she cannot have done it, though she may have had something to do with it. I mean, of course, about poor Cradock.”
“What about Cradock? I love Cousin Cradock, because he is so unlucky; and because you like him, dear.”
“Donʼt you know it? You must have seen that I was in very poor spirits. And this made me feel it so much the more, when you said what you did. We have heard that an application has been made in London, at the Home Office, or somewhere, that a warrant should be issued against Cradock Nowell, and a reward be offered for him as——Oh, my Cradock, my Craddy!”
“Put your head in here, darling. What a brute you must have thought me! Oh, I do so love you. Donʼt think twice about it, dear. I will take care that it all comes right. I will go to London to–day, dearest, and defy them to dare to do it. And Iʼll open that letter at once. It becomes a duty now; as that nasty beast always says, when she wants to do anything wrong.”
“No, no!” sobbed Amy, “you have no right to open her letter, and you shall not do it, Eoa, unless my father says that it is right. Will you promise me that, dear? Oh, do promise me that.”
“How can I promise that, when I would not have him know, for a lac of rupees, that I had ever stolen it? He would never perceive how right it was; and, though I donʼt know much about people, I am sure he would never forgive me. He is such a fidget. But I will promise you one thing, Amy—not to open it without your leave.”
Amy was obliged at last to be contented with this; though she said it was worse than nothing, for it forced the decision upon her; and, scrupulously honest and candid as she was, she would feel it right to settle the point against her own desires.
“Old Biddy knows I have got it,” cried Eoa, changing her humour: “and she patted me on the back, and said, ‘Begorra, thin, you be the cliver one; hould on to that same, me darlint, and weʼll bate every bit of her, yit; the purtiest feet and ancles to you, and the best back legs, more than iver she got, and now you bate her in the stalinʼ. And plase, Miss, rade yer ould Biddy every consuminʼ word on it. Mullygaslooce, but weʼve toorned her, this time, and thank Donats for it.’”
Eoa dramatised Biddy so cleverly, even to the form of her countenance, and her peculiar manner of standing, that Amy, with all those griefs upon her, could not help laughing heartily.