This poor girl—who had puzzled me, as you
know already, at the Shivering Sand—puzzled
me more than once again, in the interval time
of which I am now writing. Penelope's notion
that her fellow-servant was in love with Mr.
Franklin (which my daughter, by my orders,
kept strictly secret) seemed to me just as absurd
as ever. But I must own that what I myself
saw, and what my daughter saw also, of our
second housemaid's conduct began to look
mysterious, to say the least of it.

For example, the girl constantly put herself
in Mr. Franklin's way—very slyly and quietly,
but she did it. He took about as much notice
of her as he took of the cat: it never seemed
to occur to him to waste a look on Rosanna's
plain face. The poor thing's appetite, never
much, fell away dreadfully; and her eyes, in the
morning, showed plain signs of waking and
crying at night. One day Penelope made an
awkward discovery, which we hushed up on the
spot. She caught Rosanna at Mr. Franklin's
dressing-table, secretly removing a rose which
Miss Rachel had given him to wear in his button-
hole, and putting another rose like it, of her
own picking, in its place. She was, after that,
once or twice impudent to me, when I gave her
a well-meant general hint to be careful in her
conduct; and, worse still, she was not over-
respectful now, on the few occasions when Miss
Rachel accidentally spoke to her.

My lady noticed the change, and asked me
what I thought about it. I tried to screen the
girl by answering that I thought she was out of
health; and it ended in the doctor being sent
for, as already mentioned, on the nineteenth.
He said it was her nerves, and doubted if she
was fit for service. My lady offered to remove
her for change of air to one of our farms, inland.
She begged and prayed, with the tears in her
eyes, to be let to stop; and, in an evil hour, I
advised my lady to try her for a little longer.
As the event proved, and as you will soon see,
this was the worst advice I could have given.
If I could only have looked a little way into
the future, I would have taken Rosanna Spearman
out of the house, then and there, with my
own hand.

On the twentieth, there came a note from
Mr. Godfrey. He had arranged to stop at
Frizinghall that night, having occasion to
consult his father on business. On the afternoon
of the next day, he and his two eldest
sisters would ride over to us on horseback, in
good time before dinner. An elegant little
casket in china accompanied the note, presented
to Miss Rachel, with her cousin's love and best
wishes. Mr. Franklin had only given her a
plain locket not worth half the money. My
daughter Penelope, nevertheless—such is the
obstinacy of women—still backed him to win.

Thanks be to Heaven, we have arrived at the
eve of the birthday at last! You will own, I
think, that I have got you over the ground, this
time, without much loitering by the way.
Cheer up! I'll ease you with another new
chapter here—and, what is more, that chapter
shall take you straight into the thick of the
story.

CHAPTER IX.

JUNE the twenty-first, the day of the birthday,
was cloudy and unsettled at sunrise, but
towards noon it cleared up bravely.

We, in the servants' hall, began this happy
anniversary, as usual, by offering our little
presents to Miss Rachel, with the regular speech
delivered annually by me as the chief. I follow
the plan adopted by the Queen in opening
Parliament—namely, the plan of saying much the
same thing regularly every year. Before it is
delivered, my speech (like the Queen's) is
looked for as eagerly as if nothing of the
kind had ever been heard before. When it is
delivered, and turns out not to be the novelty
anticipated, though they grumble a little, they
look forward hopefully to something newer next
year. An easy people to govern, in the Parliament
and in the Kitchen—that's the moral
of it.

After breakfast, Mr. Franklin and I had a
private conference on the subject of the
Moonstone—the time having now come for removing
it from the bank at Frizinghall, and placing
it in Miss Rachel's own hands.

Whether he had been trying to make love to
his cousin again, and had got a rebuff—or
whether his broken rest, night after night, was
aggravating the queer contradictions and
uncertainties in his character—I don't know. But
certain it is, that Mr. Franklin failed to show
himself at his best on the morning of the birthday.
He was in twenty different minds about the
Diamond in as many minutes. For my part, I
stuck fast by the plain facts as we knew them.
Nothing had happened to justify us in alarming
my lady on the subject of the jewel; and
nothing could alter the legal obligation that
now lay on Mr. Franklin to put it in his
cousin's possession. That was my view of the
matter; and, twist and turn it as he might, he
was forced in the end to make it his view too.
We arranged that he was to ride over, after
lunch, to Frizinghall, and bring the Diamond
back, with Mr. Godfrey and the two young
ladies, in all probability, to keep him company
on the way home again.

This settled, our young gentleman went back
to Miss Rachel.

They consumed the whole morning, and part
of the afternoon, in the everlasting business of
decorating the door, Penelope standing by to
mix the colours, as directed; and my lady, as
luncheon-time drew near, going in and out of
the room, with her handkerchief to her nose (for
they used a deal of Mr. Franklin's vehicle that
day), and trying vainly to get the two artists
away from their work. It was three o'clock
before they took off their aprons, and released
Penelope (much the worse for the vehicle), and
cleaned themselves of their mess. But they had
done what they wanted—they had finished the
door on the birthday; and proud enough they
were of it. The griffins, cupids, and so on,