Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in London.

He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary (called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening in England with her, after an absence of so many years.

Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with her for long? Was not Kensington—was that the name of the street?—rather out of the world? etc.

I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiæ of my personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address, which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.

Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog. We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who, with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each other near the luggage-vans.

Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.

"Well, Jane!" I cried.

A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it, poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house, and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She gave me Jane's new address, which was only in the next street, and I apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.

Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to write this account. Considering this is an account of the jewels, it is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about things.

Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case, and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at the time, and she quite agreed with me.

CHAPTER III.

I did not much like the arrangement of Jane's new house when I came to stay in it. The way the two bedrooms, hers and mine, were shut off from the rest of the house by a door, barred and locked at night for fear of burglars, was, I thought, unpleasant, especially as, once in my room for the night, there was no possibility of getting out of it, the key of the door of the passage not being even allowed to remain in the lock, but retiring with Jane, the canary cage, and other valuables, into her own apartment. I remonstrated, but I soon found that Jane had not remained unmarried for nothing. She was decided on the point. The outer door would be locked as usual, and the key would be deposited under the pin-cushion in her room, as usual; and it was so.

The next morning, as Jane and I went out for a stroll before luncheon, we had to pass the house to which I had driven by mistake the day before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to me with a strange qualm.

"What is it?" I hurriedly asked a baker's boy, who was standing at an area railing, rubbing his chin against the loaf he was waiting to deliver. The boy grinned.

"It's murder!" he said, with relish. "Burgilars in the night. I've supplied her reg'lar these two months. One quartern best white, one half-quartern brown every morning, French rolls occasional; but it's all up now." And he went off whistling a tune which all bakers' boys whistled about that time, called "My Grandfather's Timepiece," or something similar.

A second policeman came up the street at this moment, and from him I learned all the little there was to know. The poor lady had not been murdered, it seemed, but, being subject to heart complaint, had died in the night of an acute attack, evidently brought on by fright. The maid, the only other person in the house, sleeping as maids-of-all-work only can, had heard nothing, and awoke in the morning to find her mistress dead in her bed, with the window and door open. "Strangely enough," the policeman added, "although nothing in the house had been touched, the lock of an unused bedroom had been forced, and the room evidently searched."

Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.

"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.

Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John's legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before, and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to leave them