"Get on?" said he. "Why, bless me, shan't I and Plympton be here? As to the state they fell into during our stay abroad, was not I away myself? One would think, Maria, you were parson and clerk and everything."
Maria smiled her sweet smile. She knew her father set little store by her work in the parish, not in fact seeing the half she did, and she was glad it should be so.
"And I should not, child, let you neglect Mrs. Page in her need--your mother's own cousin--for all the parishes in the diocese. So you can write to her this morning, or I will write if you are busy, and fix a day to go to her."
Barely had they finished breakfast when Dr. Downes came in. The loss of his snuff-box grieved and annoyed him. Not so much for its value, not so much that it was the gift of a long-esteemed friend and patron, but for the uncertainty and suspicion attending the loss. That the box must have been cleverly filched out of his pocket he felt entirely convinced of; it could not have got out of itself. All night long, between his snatches of sleep, had he been pondering the matter in his mind; and he had come to the uneasy conclusion that Philip Cleeve had taken it--either to play him a foolish trick, or to convert the box into money for his own use. But this latter doubt the Doctor would keep to himself and guard carefully. Mr. Kettle met the Doctor with open hand. It was not the Vicar's way to put himself out over things; but he was very considerably put out by this loss.
"I met that young blade, Philip Cleeve, in walking over here," observed the Doctor, as they were all three once more examining minutely every corner of the little hall--for, in a loss of this kind, we are apt to search a suspected spot over and over again. "I took the liberty of asking him whether he had purloined the box in joke when he was helping me on with my great-coat last night. It must have been then, as I take it, that it left my pocket."
Maria was rather struck with the Doctor's tone; unpleasantly so: it bore a resentful ring. "Philip would not play such a joke as that, Dr. Downes," she rejoined. "What did he say?"
"He said nothing at first; only stared at me, and asked me what I meant. So I told him what I meant: that my gold snuff-box had left my pocket last night in a mysterious and unaccountable manner, and I had been hoping that he had, perhaps, taken it, to play me a trick. He blushed red with that silly blush of his, assured me that he would not play so unjustifiable a trick on me, or on anyone else, and walked off, saying he had to catch a train. So there I was, as wise as before.--And the box is not here; and it seems not to be anywhere."
"Shall you have it cried?" asked Mr. Kettle, as they returned to the breakfast-room.
"Why, yes, I shall. Not that I expect any good will come of it. Rely upon it, that box has not been dropped in the road; it could not have been. It has been stolen; and the thief will send it up to London with speedy despatch, and make money of it. My only hope was, and that a slight one, that Philip Cleeve had got it for a lark."
"But why Philip Cleeve?" said the Vicar, hardly understanding. "Why not any other young fellow?"