The Argosy — page 202: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Mysteries of Heron Dyke. 185 one afternoon when Adéle came to her and said Mrs. Keen was asking to be admitted. ‘‘ Show her in, Adele,” said Miss Winter, in alow tone. She was afraid the girl was dead. ‘No, ma’am, and I don’t think she is any worse,” replied the landlady, in answer to the dread question. ‘‘If anything, she’s perhaps a little better. She don’t wander quite so much, and that I take to be a good sign. What I have made bold to interrupt you about, Miss Ella, is another thing.” «Sit down while you tell it me,” said Ella. “Thank you, ma’am. This morning, Betsy, who was quite her- self, though very weak, asked me to put the small trunk, which came with her from the Hall, upon the bed, so that she might find some- thing,” began Mrs. Keen, taking the chair indicated. “It was a pocket she wanted; and we were sometime finding it, what with her hands being feeble and me not knowing what it was like—white or coloured. Out of the pocket, when we had got it up, she drew out this tiny packet, ma’am, and said would I take it myself up to the Hall and give it safely to Miss Winter.” The little packet was neatly folded in tissue paper, tied round with narrow pink ribbon. Ella, rather wonderingly, opened it. Amidst some folds of cotton wool, lay a gentleman’s sleeve-link. It was of malachite and gold, of curious and very uncommon workmanship. Miss Winter had never, to her knowledge, seen it before. ‘‘ What is it?” she asked. ‘‘ Why do you bring it to me, Mrs. Keen ?” The landlady explained. ‘‘ Betsy’s mind is in trouble about it, Miss Ella,” she began; “‘ great trouble. It seems that the morning poor Herbert Stone was found, Betsy, after all was quiet, and the police and other people had gone, was outside there. She saw some- thing shining on the gravel, and picked it up. It was this trinket; she thought it very lovely, she tells me; and on the impulse of the moment she picked it up and put it in her pocket, thinking it would be a pretty present for her sweetheart—who is no other than David Sweet, the joiner’s son. And I suspect, ma’am, though she has not said as much, that it was just to be near him she took a situation over here.”’ “Very possibly,” assented Miss Winter. ‘‘ But she ought not to have concealed or kept this.” “Tt is that which is tormenting her now, ma’am. She couldn't rest till I had brought it to you and told you all. The girl says, and I can but believe her, that in the night, when she was in bed, she saw the wrong she had done, and repented of it, but was afraid then of confessing. All kinds of foolish fancies visit us in the night, as you know, Miss Ella, and she says an idea came into her mind that if she confessed what she had done and produced the trinket, she might, perhaps, be accused of having been mixed up with the _ robbery. So she wrapped and tied it up, and has kept.it hidden in her pocket till now. All her cry since she came into her right mind is, ‘If Miss Winter will but forgive me!’” CONNIClOO© SS (CO) am =>