“I did give the maid a right-down good talkin’-to, you mid think, but it didn’t seem to do her much good. “About a week or two arter, I was sendin’ her to fetch the washin’ back--I did use to wash for a lady what lived a mile away, and sometimes carrier did fetch it, and sometimes I did send Jenny. Well, ’twas a heavyish basket, and when I did see her marchin’ back down the path, I says to her:-- “‘You’ve a-been quicker nor I could ha’ looked for,’ I says. “‘Oh, e-es,’ says she, ‘somebody helped I for to carry it.’ “‘Somebody,’ I says. ‘Who?’ “She went quite red, and opened her mouth and shut it again, and then she says very quick:-- “‘Oh, a man what I met, as said it did seem too heavy for I.’” “Ah-h-h!” said Mrs. Cross, seizing her opportunity as the other paused for breath, “it was him?” Mrs. Chaffey resented the other’s eagerness to jump to a conclusion, and continued in a voice of increased sternness, and without noticing the interruption:-- “Next day was a Sunday again. I wasn’t feelin’ so very well, so I did tell her she mid go to church that mornin’ an’ I’d bide at home. Well, that there little maid took so long a-dressin’ of herself as if she was a queen; so arter I’d called her once or twice I just went upstairs an’ looked in at her. I had my soft shoes on, and she didn’t hear I comin’. “There she was, if you please, a-kneeling before her bed, a-turnin’ of her head this way an’ that, an’ a-lookin’ at herself in a wold lid of a biscuit-box, what she’d picked up somewheres an’ rubbed up till it did seem so bright as silver. There! the little impident hussy; she had stood it up against her pillow, an’ she was a-lookin’ at herself an’ a-holdin’ up a bit o’ blue ribbon, fust under her chin an’ then sideways again her hat. “‘Jenny,’ I says, an’, dear, to be sure, how the voolish maid did jump! “‘Lard, ma’am,’ says she, ‘you did fray me!’ “‘What be doin’ there?’ I axes her very sharp. ‘What be doin’ with that there ribbon? Where did you get it?’ I says, for I knowed very well she hadn’t a penny of her own. “She went so red as a poppy, an’ stood still, gawkin’ at I, wi’out making no answer. “‘You did steal it, I d’ ’low,’ I says, an’ I gives a kind of a scream. “Then she did go white, and her teeth fair chattered in her head. “‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ she cried; ‘no, indeed. It be mine, honest. It was give me.’ “‘Give ye,’ says I. ‘Who give it?’ “Then she did begin a-cryin’ and a-rockin’ of herself backwards an’ forrads. ‘It be mine,’ she sobs; ‘somebody did give it to I.’ “‘_Somebody!_’ I says, an’ the notion come to I all to once. ‘It was never that man as you met on the road yesterday?’ “Not a word would she answer, but goes on cryin’.