asked Miss Macmanus, in a peculiarly strong-minded tone.
Miss Grogram seemed to be for a moment silenced. I had been ignored, asI have said, and my existence forgotten; but now I observed that the eyesof the culprits were turned towards me,—the eyes, that is, of four ofthem. Mrs. Jones looked at me from beneath her fan; the two girlsglanced at me furtively, and then their eyes fell to the lowest flouncesof their frocks.
Miss Grogram turned her spectacles right upon me, and I fancied that shenodded her head at me as a sort of answer to Miss Macmanus. The fivepupils opened their mouths and eyes wider; but she of the broad back wasnothing abashed. It would have been nothing to her had there been adozen gentlemen in the room. “We just found a pair of black—.” Thewhole truth was told in the plainest possible language.
“Oh, Aunt Sally!” “Aunt Sally, how can you?” “Hold your tongue, AuntSally!”
“And then Miss Grogram just cut them up with her scissors,” continuedAunt Sally, not a whit abashed, “and gave us each a bit, only she tookmore than half for herself.” It was clear to me that there had been somequarrel, some delicious quarrel, between Aunt Sally and Miss Grogram.Through the whole adventure I had rather respected Aunt Sally. “She tookmore than half for herself,” continued Aunt Sally. “She kept all the—”
“Jemima,” said the elder Miss Macmanus, interrupting the speaker andaddressing her sister, “it is time, I think, for the young ladies toretire. Will you be kind enough to see them to their rooms?” The fivepupils thereupon rose from their seats—and courtesied. They then leftthe room in file, the younger Miss Macmanus showing them the way.
“But we haven’t done any harm, have we?” asked Mrs. Jones, with sometremulousness in her voice.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Macmanus. “What I’m thinking of now isthis;—to whom, I wonder, did the garments properly belong? Who had beenthe owner and wearer of them?”
“Why, General Chassé of course,” said Miss Grogram.
“They were the general’s,” repeated the two young ladies; blushing,however, as they alluded to the subject.
“Well, we thought they were the general’s, certainly; and a veryexcellent article they were,” said Mrs. Jones.
“Perhaps they were the butler’s?” said Aunt Sally. I certainly had notgiven her credit for so much sarcasm.
“Butler’s!” exclaimed Miss Grogram, with a toss of her head.
“Oh, Aunt Sally, Aunt Sally! how can you?” shrieked the two young ladies.
“Oh laws!” ejaculated Mrs. Jones.
“I don’t think that they could have belonged to the butler,” said MissMacmanus, with much authority, “seeing that domestics in this country arenever clad in garments of that description; so far my own observationenables me to speak with certainty. But it is equally sure that theywere never the property of the general lately in command at Antwerp.Generals, when they are in full dress, wear ornamental lace upontheir—their regimentals; and when—” So much she said, and somethingmore, which it may be unnecessary that I should repeat; but such were hereloquence and logic that no doubt would have been left on the mind of anyimpartial hearer. If an argumentative speaker ever proved anything, MissMacmanus proved that General Chassé had never been the wearer of thearticle in question.
“But I know very well they were his!” said Miss Grogram, who was not animpartial hearer. “Of course they were; whose else’s should they be?”
“I’m sure I hope they were his,” said one of the young ladies, almostcrying.
“I wish I’d never taken it,” said the other.
“Dear, dear, dear!” said Mrs. Jones.
“I’ll give you my needle-case, Miss Grogram,” said Aunt Sally.
I had sat hitherto silent during the whole scene, meditating how best Imight confound the red-nosed harpy. Now, I thought, was the time for meto strike in.
“I really think, ladies, that there has been some mistake,” said I.
“There has been no mistake at all, sir!” said Miss Grogram.
“Perhaps not,” I answered, very mildly; “very likely not. But someaffair of a similar nature was very much talked about in Antwerpyesterday.”
“Oh laws!” again ejaculated Mrs. Jones.
“The affair I allude to has been talked about a good deal, certainly,” Icontinued. “But perhaps it may be altogether a different circumstance.”
“And what may be the circumstance to which you allude?” asked MissMacmanus, in the same authoritative tone.
“I dare say it has nothing to do with these ladies,” said I; “but anarticle of dress, of the nature they have described, was cut up in theCastle of Antwerp on the day before yesterday. It belonged to agentleman who was visiting the place; and I was given to understand thathe is determined to punish the people who have wronged him.”
“It can’t be the same,” said Miss Grogram; but I could see that she wastrembling.
“Oh laws! what will become of us?” said Mrs. Jones.
“You can all prove that I didn’t touch them, and that I warned her not,”said Aunt Sally. In the mean time the two young ladies had almostfainted behind their fans.
“But how had it come to pass,” asked Miss Macmanus, “that the gentlemanhad—”
“I know nothing more about it, cousin,” said I; “only it does seem thatthere is an odd coincidence.”
Immediately after this I took my leave. I saw that I had avenged myfriend, and spread dismay in the hearts of these who had injured him. Ihad learned in the course of the evening at what hotel the five ladieswere staying; and in the course of the next morning I sauntered into thehall, and finding one of the porters alone, asked if they were stillthere. The man told me that they had started by the earliest diligence.“And,” said he, “if you are a friend of theirs, perhaps you will takecharge of these things, which they have left behind them?” So saying, hepointed to a table at the back of the hall, on which were lying the blackbag, the black needle-case, the black pin cushion, and the blackpen-wiper. There was also a heap of fragments of cloth which I well knewhad been intended by Miss Grogram for the comfort of her feet and ancles.
I declined the commission, however. “They were no special friends ofmine,” I said; and I left all the relics still lying on the little tablein the back hall.
“Upon the whole, I am satisfied!” said the Rev. Augustus Horne, when Itold him the finale of the story.
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