"And how did you happen to go home to Sweden?" asked Robert.
"Mrs. Arnold wanted another house-girl and I'd told her about my sister Christina, who is old enough now to be handy. She was kind enough to pay my passage over so I could bring her out with me, and let me stay all summer, too. Did you ever see such goodness?"
"She's a very uncommon mistress, certainly," said Emily.
"It was the day after we were talking at Hillsborough that I started," said Bertha. "Do you remember?"
"Yes, indeed," answered Emily, brightening up, "and now let us finish that talk. I have a hundred questions I want to ask you. Shall you testify to-day?"
"No; I've only just got here and the lawyer said he would leave me till the last. The voyage is very tiresome, you know."
"Then come with me," cried Emily, with animation, and drew Bertha after her into the ante-room. Here Robert caught a glimpse of her from time to time questioning, explaining, measuring with her hands, as if she were satisfying herself on doubtful points of her theory. And when she finally came out, in the middle of Miss Lamb's cross-examination, her face wore a smile so auroral that even Chief Justice Playfair's eyes left the witness and wandered over toward the true-hearted girl.
"Mr. Aronson told you that he worked on his knees at this mysterious safe?" was Shagarach's opening question to Miss Lamb.
"On his knees," answered the maiden, still bonneted and fanning herself with Emily's fan, which she had forgotten to return in the excitement of the previous evening.
"Mr. Aronson is not an uncommonly tall man, is he?"