"I have not been into the schoolroom at all, and I know that it is not in the drawing-room."
A search was instituted, but the book could not be found. On the morrow it was in the boudoir, where Betty had placed it on her return from Mudie's.
"One of the maids took it," was her explanation. She did not much care for the book; perhaps that was due to her preoccupation, and not to any lack of stirring incident in the story. She sent it back and took out another. Next morning that also had disappeared.
It now became customary, as surely as she drew a novel from the library, that it vanished clean away. Betty was greatly amazed. She could not read a novel she had brought home till a day or two later. She took to putting the book, so soon as it was in the house, into one of her drawers, or into a cupboard. But the result was the same. Finally, when she had locked the newly acquired volume in her desk, and it had disappeared thence also, her patience gave way. There must be one of the domestics with a ravenous appetite for fiction, which drove her to carry off a book of the sort whenever it came into the house, and even to tamper with a lock to obtain it. Betty had been most reluctant to speak of the matter to her aunt, but now she made to her a formal complaint.
The servants were all questioned, and strongly protested their innocence. Not one of them had ventured to do such a thing as that with which they were charged.
However, from this time forward the annoyance ceased, and Betty and Lady Lacy naturally concluded that this was the result of the stir that had been made.
"Betty," said Lady Lacy, "what do you say to going to the new play at the Gaiety? I hear it very highly spoken of. Mrs. Fontanel has a box and has asked if we will join her."
"I should love it," replied the girl; "we have been rather quiet of late." But her heart was oppressed with fear.
She said to her maid: "Martha, will you dress me this evening—and—pray stay with me till my aunt is ready and calls for me?"
"Yes, miss, I shall be pleased to do so." But the girl looked somewhat surprised at the latter part of the request.