Next she trifled with the temptation of the diamond ring.  She slipped it on and off her finger.  She had large beautiful hands in perfect proportion to her large beautiful form, and the ring that had fitted the banker’s long thin finger fitted her round white one perfectly.  So, she took the jewelled box from her bosom, opened it, put the diamond ring in it, then closed and returned it to its hiding place.

Finally retaining the box, the watch and the rings, she replaced all the jewels and the money-bags in the satchel, and put the satchel for the present between the mattresses of her bed.  While thus engaged she heard her old attendant moving about in the next room, and she knew that she was setting the table for her breakfast.

So she hastened to smooth the bed again, and snatch the napkins off the keyholes, and unlock the doors lest her very caution should excite suspicion.

Then at length she took time to wash the railroad dust from her face, and brush it from her hair.

And finally she passed into her sitting-room where she found the table laid for her single breakfast.

Presently her housekeeper entered bringing one tray on which stood tea and coffee with their accompaniments, and followed by a young kitchen maid with another tray on which stood the bread, butter, marmalade, meat, fish, etc., with their accompaniments.

When all these were arranged upon the table, Rose Cameron sat down and fell to.

Being a very perfect animal, she was blessed with an excellent appetite and a healthy digestion.  She was therefore, a very heavy feeder; and now bread, butter, fish, meat, marmalade disappeared rapidly from the scene, to the great amusement of the housekeeper and kitchen maid, who had never seen “a lady” eat so ravenously.

When the breakfast service was removed, she went back into her bedroom, locked the door, and covered the keyholes as before, and took the satchel from between the mattresses, and opened it to gloat over her treasures; for she quite considered them as her own.  Again she was “tempted of the devil.”  She thought of the fine shops in London, and the fine ready-made dresses she could buy with the very smallest of these bags of money.

“Why should I no’?  What’s his is mine!  I’ll e’en tak the wee baggie, and gae till the fine shops,” she said to herself.  And selecting one of the fifty pound bags, she replaced the others in the satchel, and put the satchel in its hiding place.

She got ready for her expedition by arraying herself in a cheap, dark-blue silk suit, and a straw hat with a blue feather.  Then she carefully locked her bedroom door, and took the key with her when she left the house.

Her ambition did not take any very high flights, although she did believe herself to be a countess.  She knew nothing of the splendid shops of the West End.  She only knew the Borrough and St. Paul’s churchyard, both of which she thought, contained the riches and splendors of the whole world.  She went to the nearest cab-stand, took a cab, and drove to St. Paul’s churchyard, (in ancient times a cemetery, but now a network of narrow, crowded streets, filled with cheap, showy shops.) She spent the best part of the day in that attractive locality.