the age when we are all of us most apt to take
our colouring, in the form of a reflection from
the colouring of other people, he had been sent
abroad, and had been passed on, from one
nation to another, before there was time
for any one colouring more than another to
settle itself on him firmly. As a consequence
of this, he had come back with so many
different sides to his character, all more or less
unfinished, and all more or less jarring with
each other, that he seemed to pass his life in a
state of perpetual contradiction with himself.
He could be a busy man, and a lazy man;
cloudy in the head, and clear in the head; a
model of determination, and a spectacle of
helplessness, all together. He had his French
side, and his German side, and his Italian side
—the original English foundation showing
through, every now and then, as much as to
say, " Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you
see, but there's something of me left at the
bottom of him still." Miss Rachel used to
remark that the Italian side of him was uppermost,
on those occasions when he unexpectedly
gave in, and asked you in his nice sweet-
tempered way to take his own responsibilities
on your shoulders. You will do him no
injustice, I think, if you conclude that the Italian
side of him was uppermost now.

"Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, " to
know what to do next? Surely it can't be
mine?"

Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force
of my question—not being in a position, at the
time, to see anything but the sky over his head.

"I don't want to alarm my aunt without
reason," he said. "And I don't want to leave
her without what may be a needful warning.
If you were in my place, Betteredge, tell me,
in one word, what would you do?"

In one word, I told him: "Wait."

"With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin.
"How long?"

I proceeded to explain myself.

"As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody
is bound to put this plaguy Diamond into
Miss Rachel's hands on her birthday—and you
may as well do it as another. Very good. This
is the twenty-fifth of May, and the birthday is
on the twenty-first of June. We have got close
on four weeks before us. Let's wait and see
what happens in that time; and let's warn my
lady or not, as the circumstances direct us."

"Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" savs
Mr. Franklin. "But, between this and the birthday,
what's to be done with the Diamond?"

"What your father did with it, to be sure,
sir!" I answered. " Your father put it in the
safe keeping of a bank in London. You put it
in the safe keeping of the bank at Frizinghall."
(Frizinghall was our nearest town, and the
Bank of England wasn't safer than the bank
there.) "If I were you, sir," I added, "I would
ride straight away with it to Frizinghall before
the ladies come back."

The prospect of doing something—and, what
is more, of doing that something on a horse—
brought Mr. Franklin up like lightning from
the flat of his back. He sprang to his feet,
and pulled me up, without ceremony, on to
mine. " Betteredge, you are worth your weight
in gold," he said. " Come along, and saddle the
best horse in the stables directly!"

Here (God bless it!) was the original English
foundation of him showing through all
the foreign varnish at last! Here was the
Master Franklin I remembered, coming out
again in the good old way at the prospect of a
ride, and reminding me of the good old times!
Saddle a horse for him? I would have saddled
a dozen horses, if he could only have ridden
them all!

We went back to the house in a hurry;
we had the fleetest horse in the stables
saddled in a hurry; and Mr. Franklin
rattled off in a hurry, to lodge the cursed
Diamond once more in the strong-room of
a bank. When I heard the last of his horse's
hoofs on the drive, and when I turned about in
the yard and found I was alone again, I felt
half inclined to ask myself if I hadn't woke up
from a dream.

CHAPTER VII.

WHILE I was in this bewildered frame of
mind, sorely needing a little quiet time by
myself to put me right again, my daughter
Penelope got in my way (just as her late mother
used to get in my way on the stairs), and
instantly summoned me to tell her all that had
passed at the conference between Mr. Franklin
and me. Under present circumstances, the one
thing to be done was to clap the extinguisher
upon Penelope's curiosity on the spot. I
accordingly replied that Mr. Franklin and I had
both talked of foreign politics, till we could talk
no longer, and had then mutually fallen asleep
in the heat of the sun. Try that sort of answer
when your wife or your daughter next worries
you with an awkward question at an awkward
time, and depend on the natural sweetness of
women for kissing and making it up again at
the next opportunity.

The afternoon wore on, and my lady and Miss
Rachel came back.

Needless to say how astonished they were,
when they heard that Mr. Franklin Blake had
arrived, and had gone off again on horseback.
Needless also to say, that they asked awkward
questions directly, and that the " foreign
politics" and the " falling asleep in the sun"
wouldn't serve a second time over with them.
Being at the end of my invention, I said Mr.
Franklin's arrival by the early train was entirely
attributable to one of Mr. Franklin's freaks.
Being asked, upon that, whether his galloping
off again on horseback was another of Mr.
Franklin's freaks, I said, " Yes, it was;" and
slipped out of it—I think very cleverly—in
that way.

Having got over my difficulties with the
ladies, I found more difficulties waiting for me
when I went back to my own room. In came
Penelope—with the natural sweetness of women