strange in her husband's perplexity, and after her sorrow of the
previous night. Well, then, when Mrs. Walker went out in the
morning, she did so with a very large basket under her arm. "Shall
I carry the basket, ma'am?" said the page, seizing it with much
alacrity.

"No, thank you," cried his mistress, with equal eagerness: "it's
only--"

"Of course, ma'am," replied the boy, sneering, "I knew it was that."

"Glass," continued Mrs. Walker, turning extremely red. "Have the
goodness to call a coach, sir, and not to speak till you are
questioned."

The young gentleman disappeared upon his errand: the coach was
called and came. Mrs. Walker slipped into it with her basket, and
the page went downstairs to his companions in the kitchen, and said,
"It's a-comin'! master's in quod, and missus has gone out to pawn
the plate." When the cook went out that day, she somehow had by
mistake placed in her basket a dozen of table-knives and a plated
egg-stand. When the lady's-maid took a walk in the course of the
afternoon, she found she had occasion for eight cambric
pocket-handkerchiefs, (marked with her mistress's cipher),
half-a-dozen pair of shoes, gloves, long and short, some silk
stockings, and a gold-headed scent-bottle. "Both the new cashmeres
is gone," said she, "and there's nothing left in Mrs. Walker's
trinket-box but a paper of pins and an old coral bracelet." As for
the page, he rushed incontinently to his master's dressing-room and
examined every one of the pockets of his clothes; made a parcel of