Off went mamma to interview cook. I turned to Eveleen, who was still sitting on the side of my bed with an air of complete unconcern, as if nothing whatever mattered. I always did say that she was almost too much like papa.

"It seems as if everything was going wrong--everything! Eveleen, what is the time?"

"Just past ten."

"Past ten! Has my dress come?" She shook her head with an air of the utmost nonchalance. If it had been her dress! "But Mme. Sylvia promised that I should have it before ten! And I've had no breakfast!"

"There is breakfast waiting for you downstairs."

"As if I wanted any breakfast! As if I could eat, feeling as I do! You know that I had arranged to commence dressing at ten! Eveleen, what am I to do?"

"You mean about the dress? It's only just past ten; it may come still."

"May come! Eveleen, do you want me to--to hit you? Eliza or someone must go at once and fetch it, finished or not."

"I daresay Eliza can go, if you think it necessary. If you take my advice you won't excite yourself."

"Won't excite myself! If it were your wedding and your dress you'd talk in a different strain."

"I should have made different arrangements."

"You would have made--" I bit my lip till it nearly bled; I had to do something to stop myself. "I know how nice you can be if you like; but I don't mean to quarrel with you, to-day of all days, if I can help it." As I was speaking Eliza reappeared in the doorway. "Eliza, I want you to get a hansom and to tell the man to drive you to Mme. Sylvia's as fast as he can. I'll give you a note to her. You're to bring my dress back with you. I'll write the note while you're putting on your hat. Do be as quick as you can."

"If you please, miss, Miss Mackenzie's downstairs."

A voice exclaimed behind Eliza,--

"Oh, no, she's not; she's here." There stood Ellen, in her bridesmaid's dress, all smiles. She came bustling into the room--in that bustling way she always has. "Well, my children, how are you? And how's the sweet young bride? You told me to be here by ten--ready dressed--and here I am. What do you think of it?" She turned and twisted herself about so as to show off her dress. "It's a bit tight under the arms and a shade loose in the back, but it's not so bad. Am I the first? Where are Bertha and Constance?"

I waved my hand towards Eveleen.

"Tell her--I can't!"

Eveleen told her everything, and I will say this for her, she made out things to be as bad as they very well could be. Ellen Mackenzie's face was a study. She is one of the plainest girls I know--her dress did not suit her at all; I knew it wouldn't; nothing ever does; and she seemed to grow plainer and plainer as she listened. But she was more sympathetic than any of my relations had been. She threw her arms round me, quite indifferent as to what might happen to her dress.

"You poor darling! To have had your presents stolen--and two bridesmaids down with the measles--and your father gone to that horrid City--and the servants quarrelling--and now no wedding-dress! As to that Mme. Sylvia, if I were in your place I should feel like wringing her neck."

"I shouldn't be surprised if I did wring it if my dress isn't ready by the time that Eliza gets there. Eliza, haven't you got your hat on?"

She had actually stood there looking on and listening, with her eyes and mouth wide open. But she was ready almost as soon as the note was--it was a note! And just as we had started her off, with strict injunctions to come back at once and bring the dress back with her, if she had to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of the dressmaker's hands, a person arrived who stated that he was a detective and had come to inquire into the burglary, and who insisted on seeing me. So we saw him all three of us together, and a most unpleasant interview it was. He asked me the most disagreeable questions, wanting to know what I valued the missing presents at, and how much they had cost, and if the jewellery was real, and unpleasant things of that sort. While we were in the very midst of it mamma came in in a state of painful excitement.

"Are you a policeman?" she demanded. "Because if you are I should like you to tell my cook and my parlourmaid that if they leave my house this day without giving me due and proper notice they will do so at their peril, and that I shall prosecute them both as sure as they are living." The detective stroked his chin and seemed disinclined to do as mamma desired. She went on, "My parlourmaid has been making the most unwarrantable accusations against my cook, in consequence of which she declares that she won't stay in the house another minute; and when I told my parlourmaid what I thought of her behaviour she announced that she should also go at once. They are both perfectly well aware that it is my daughter's wedding day, and that if they do go everything will be in a state of confusion; so I want you to speak to them and bring them to a proper sense of their duty."

The detective still seemed dubious.

"I am afraid, madam, that that sort of thing hardly comes within my jurisdiction. But if they are going I should like to ask them a few questions about this burglary before they leave the house."

Cook with her hat on, and Mary with hers in her hand, had been standing in the doorway all the while. Cook now came forward--battle in her eye; we always had had trouble with her temper.

"I'm quite ready to answer any questions that's put to me; but if anyone says a word against Mr Parsons, who's as honest and respectable a man as ever walked this earth, then I say they're liars."

Then came Mary, who, as we had all of us noticed, always had a way of hinting more than she actually said.

"What I say is true, and I'm not going to be frightened from speaking the truth by anyone. I say that Mr Parsons was hanging about this house last night till after twelve o'clock; and so he was."

There was a frightful scene. I believe, if the detective had not been present, that those two women would have attacked each other. When Eveleen and Ellen got me back into my own room my nerves were in such a state that I was trembling all over. It was past eleven. There were still no signs of Eliza or my dress. The carriage was to come to take me to the church at twelve; the wedding was to be at half-past; as we wanted to catch the afternoon train for Paris we had arranged to have it early. I was feeling both miserable and desperate, altogether different from what I had intended to feel.

"I shall go and fetch the dress myself," I said.

"Rather than you shall do that," exclaimed Eveleen, "I'll go myself."

And she went, giving me a few words of advice before she departed. "Do control yourself, Maud, and don't give way. Everything will be all right if you keep calm. I promise to bring you your dress in twenty minutes, if I don't meet Eliza with it on the way."

It was all very well for her to talk about keeping calm, but I had reached a stage when something had to be done. So I threw myself on the bed and had a cry. Although Ellen did try to comfort me it was not the slightest use. Then, when she saw the state I was in, she started crying too. And while we were both of us at it in came mamma. She was almost in a worse condition than we were. Cook and Mary had both left, and the detective had gone without having done the slightest good, and everything was topsy-turvy. The refreshments for the reception which was to take place after the wedding were to come in from outside, and the waiters also; still, it was dreadful to be practically servantless.

Mamma was in such a state of painful agitation that she almost drove me to hysterics. Then Jane, the kitchenmaid, came rushing in. Since Eliza had not yet returned, she was the only maid we had in the house.

"If you please, ma'am, the carriages have come."

"Carriages! What carriages?"

"To take Miss Maud and her bridesmaids to the wedding, ma'am."

"Wedding!" Mamma laughed; it was an awful sound. "Since it does not seem likely that there will be any wedding, it will hardly be worth their while to wait."

"Shall I tell them to go, ma'am?"

When the idiotic Jane asked that question I leapt right off the bed on to the floor.

"Mamma! Jane! How can you be so absurd?"

I was just going to give both of them a piece of my mind--because mamma's conduct really was ridiculous--when someone else came tearing up the staircase. It was Eveleen, followed by a smartly-dressed young woman carrying a large box--which I made a dash at--with Eliza in the rear.

"Here's your dress!" cried Eveleen.

The young woman began to explain.

"Mme. Sylvia sends her apologies, and hopes you will excuse her for having kept you waiting; but there has been an unavoidable delay owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding--"

Eveleen cut her short.

"We'll have the apologies and all that sort of thing afterwards. What you have to do, Maud, is to put on that dress in the shortest time on record, and let's hope it fits. You've been crying--so have you, mamma--and Ellen! You're three nice people. As for you, Ellen, nothing will get those marks off your face except clean water, and you'll have to wash."

Ellen's complexion takes a tremendous time; she uses all sorts of things for it, so that that was a bad blow for her. We all began to bustle. The young woman began to unpack the box, and I got quite ready to slip into the dress when it was unpacked. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Mme. Sylvia's a.s.sistant.

"My goodness! what is this?" She was holding up what looked as if it were some weird sort of a blouse made of all the colours of the rainbow; it was certainly not part of my wedding-dress. She stared and we stared. Then she dropped on to a chair with a groan. "There's been a mistake," she gasped. "In the hurry I've brought a dress which we have been making for Mrs Markham for a fancy-dress ball, and I'm afraid your dress has gone to her."

There are moments in life when, the worst having come to the worst, obviously the only thing left to do is to look it boldly in the face. I realised that one of those moments had come to me then. All hope was gone; nothing remained but to calmly face despair. I gave myself a sort of mental pinch, and walked quietly up to that young woman, feeling--and no doubt looking--almost dangerously cool. I picked up the parti-coloured garment, which was all that had been brought to me after all that strain and stress.

"This looks as if it might be some sort of fancy dress. Am I to understand that it is a fancy dress?"