Eveleen told her everything, and I will say this for her, she made out things to be as bad as they very well could be. Ellen Mackenzie's face was a study. She is one of the plainest girls I know--her dress did not suit her at all; I knew it wouldn't; nothing ever does; and she seemed to grow plainer and plainer as she listened. But she was more sympathetic than any of my relations had been. She threw her arms round me, quite indifferent as to what might happen to her dress.
"You poor darling! To have had your presents stolen--and two bridesmaids down with the measles--and your father gone to that horrid City--and the servants quarrelling--and now no wedding-dress! As to that Mme. Sylvia, if I were in your place I should feel like wringing her neck."
"I shouldn't be surprised if I did wring it if my dress isn't ready by the time that Eliza gets there. Eliza, haven't you got your hat on?"
She had actually stood there looking on and listening, with her eyes and mouth wide open. But she was ready almost as soon as the note was--it was a note! And just as we had started her off, with strict injunctions to come back at once and bring the dress back with her, if she had to snatch it out of the dressmaker's hands, a person arrived who stated that he was a detective and had come to inquire into the burglary, and who insisted on seeing me. So we saw him all three of us together, and a most unpleasant interview it was. He asked me the most disagreeable questions, wanting to know what I valued the missing presents at, and how much they had cost, and if the jewellery was real, and unpleasant things of that sort. While we were in the very midst of it mamma came in in a state of painful excitement.
"Are you a policeman?" she demanded. "Because if you are I should like you to tell my cook and my parlourmaid that if they leave my house this day without giving me due and proper notice they will do so at their peril, and that I shall prosecute them both as sure as they are living." The detective stroked his chin and seemed disinclined to do as mamma desired. She went on, "My parlourmaid has been making the most unwarrantable accusations against my cook, in consequence of which she declares that she won't stay in the house another minute; and when I told my parlourmaid what I thought of her behaviour she announced that she should also go at once. They are both perfectly well aware that it is my daughter's wedding day, and that if they do go everything will be in a state of confusion; so I want you to speak to them and bring them to a proper sense of their duty."
The detective still seemed dubious.
"I am afraid, madam, that that sort of thing hardly comes within my jurisdiction. But if they are going I should like to ask them a few questions about this burglary before they leave the house."
Cook with her hat on, and Mary with hers in her hand, had been standing in the doorway all the while. Cook now came forward--battle in her eye; we always had had trouble with her temper.
"I'm quite ready to answer any questions that's put to me; but if anyone says a word against Mr Parsons, who's as honest and respectable a man as ever walked this earth, then I say they're liars."
Then came Mary, who, as we had all of us noticed, always had a way of hinting more than she actually said.