“My dear! your Indian cabinet has no lock to it,” says my lady.

“Good Heavens, mamma!” cried Miss Rachel, “is this an hotel?  Are there thieves in the house?”

Without taking notice of this fantastic way of talking, my lady wished the gentlemen good-night.  She next turned to Miss Rachel, and kissed her.  “Why not let me keep the Diamond for you to-night?” she asked.

Miss Rachel received that proposal as she might, ten years since, have received a proposal to part her from a new doll.  My lady saw there was no reasoning with her that night.  “Come into my room, Rachel, the first thing to-morrow morning,” she said.  “I shall have something to say to you.”  With those last words she left us slowly; thinking her own thoughts, and, to all appearance, not best pleased with the way by which they were leading her.

Miss Rachel was the next to say good-night.  She shook hands first with Mr. Godfrey, who was standing at the other end of the hall, looking at a picture.  Then she turned back to Mr. Franklin, still sitting weary and silent in a corner.

What words passed between them I can’t say.  But standing near the old oak frame which holds our large looking-glass, I saw her reflected in it, slyly slipping the locket which Mr. Franklin had given to her, out of the bosom of her dress, and showing it to him for a moment, with a smile which certainly meant something out of the common, before she tripped off to bed.  This incident staggered me a little in the reliance I had previously felt on my own judgment.  I began to think that Penelope might be right about the state of her young lady’s affections, after all.

As soon as Miss Rachel left him eyes to see with, Mr. Franklin noticed me.  His variable humour, shifting about everything, had shifted about the Indians already.

“Betteredge,” he said, “I’m half inclined to think I took Mr. Murthwaite too seriously, when we had that talk in the shrubbery.  I wonder whether he has been trying any of his traveller’s tales on us?  Do you really mean to let the dogs loose?”

“I’ll relieve them of their collars, sir,” I answered, “and leave them free to take a turn in the night, if they smell a reason for it.”

“All right,” says Mr. Franklin.  “We’ll see what is to be done to-morrow.  I am not at all disposed to alarm my aunt, Betteredge, without a very pressing reason for it.  Good-night.”

He looked so worn and pale as he nodded to me, and took his candle to go up-stairs, that I ventured to advise his having a drop of brandy-and-water, by way of night-cap.  Mr. Godfrey, walking towards us from the other end of the hall, backed me.  He pressed Mr. Franklin, in the friendliest manner, to take something, before he went to bed.

I only note these trifling circumstances, because, after all I had seen and heard, that day, it pleased me to observe that our two gentlemen were on just as good terms as ever.  Their warfare of words (heard by Penelope in the drawing-room), and their rivalry for the best place in Miss Rachel’s good graces, seemed to have set no serious difference between them.  But there! they were both good-tempered, and both men of the world.  And there is certainly this merit in people of station, that they are not nearly so quarrelsome among each other as people of no station at all.