and spirits.  The legs of the poor horses trembled with carrying them; and when they jumped from their saddles (without waiting to be helped), I declare they bounced on the ground as if they were made of india-rubber.  Everything the Miss Ablewhites said began with a large O; everything they did was done with a bang; and they giggled and screamed, in season and out of season, on the smallest provocation.  Bouncers—­that’s what I call them.

Under cover of the noise made by the young ladies, I had an opportunity of saying a private word to Mr. Franklin in the hall.

“Have you got the Diamond safe, sir?”

He nodded, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat.

“Have you seen anything of the Indians?”

“Not a glimpse.”  With that answer, he asked for my lady, and, hearing she was in the small drawing-room, went there straight.  The bell rang, before he had been a minute in the room, and Penelope was sent to tell Miss Rachel that Mr. Franklin Blake wanted to speak to her.

Crossing the hall, about half an hour afterwards, I was brought to a sudden standstill by an outbreak of screams from the small drawing-room.  I can’t say I was at all alarmed; for I recognised in the screams the favourite large O of the Miss Ablewhites.  However, I went in (on pretence of asking for instructions about the dinner) to discover whether anything serious had really happened.

There stood Miss Rachel at the table, like a person fascinated, with the Colonel’s unlucky Diamond in her hand.  There, on either side of her, knelt the two Bouncers, devouring the jewel with their eyes, and screaming with ecstasy every time it flashed on them in a new light.  There, at the opposite side of the table, stood Mr. Godfrey, clapping his hands like a large child, and singing out softly, “Exquisite! exquisite!” There sat Mr. Franklin in a chair by the book-case, tugging at his beard, and looking anxiously towards the window.  And there, at the window, stood the object he was contemplating—­my lady, having the extract from the Colonel’s Will in her hand, and keeping her back turned on the whole of the company.

She faced me, when I asked for my instructions; and I saw the family frown gathering over her eyes, and the family temper twitching at the corners of her mouth.

“Come to my room in half an hour,” she answered.  “I shall have something to say to you then.”

With those words she went out.  It was plain enough that she was posed by the same difficulty which had posed Mr. Franklin and me in our conference at the Shivering Sand.  Was the legacy of the Moonstone a proof that she had treated her brother with cruel injustice? or was it a proof that he was worse than the worst she had ever thought of him?  Serious questions those for my lady to determine, while her daughter, innocent of all knowledge of the Colonel’s character, stood there with the Colonel’s birthday gift in her hand.