“Maisie, dear, do put back your things now,” interrupted her unhappy parent, who by this time was on the verge of tears. “The inspector has finished with your trunk, and is going to mine. And please be careful of your cape! I wish you had worn it instead—” “Instead of my old one?” said the girl hastily, smoothing down, as she spoke, a very handsome and palpably new piece of sealskin on her shoulders. “Poor mother is so blundering,” she sighed softly in my ear. “I am wearing this cape for Dr. Hunsdale. He is bringing it home to his sister, and of course wouldn’t have any shadow of a chance with it himself. Indeed, he intended to declare it, which would have been a dreadful shame. So I just offered to pack mine and wear this one. Lots of girls do, you know. I’ve got a watch here for another man, too,” lightly touching the châtelaine by her side. “Not a gold one. Only a little silver thing he bought for _his_ sister, who is a child. Poor mother doesn’t know about that, or she would be more miserable still; and she is pretty miserable now, isn’t she?” contemplating her perturbed relative with gentle disfavor. “You see, she worries so, she makes that man believe we have something tremendously valuable somewhere, and he is bent on finding it out. There, he’s after our Roman blankets; but those are for ourselves, and, what is more,” raising her voice, “we have had them in use for nearly three months.” “Three months isn’t long enough,” returned the official surlily. “You must have had them in use a year, to bring them in free.” “A year!” echoed Maisie, opening her round eyes with innocent amazement. “If you knew much about Roman blankets, you wouldn’t expect anybody to use them for a year, and then think them worth bringing home. What a thrifty lot the custom-house people must be! Poor mother! She never expected to pay for those, and it does seem a little hard on her. But what’s that he’s got now? Oh! _do_ look!” for the inspector had grabbed something loosely wrapped in white tissue paper, and was holding it aloft with an exultant shake, and an “I’ve-tracked-you-at-last” expression. Down fell a rubber shoe, of unmistakable American manufacture, but richly crusted with layers of foreign mud. It flopped modestly into the bottom of the trunk, and was greeted with a ringing laugh of genuine, uncontrolled delight. “That’s a present,” sobbed the girl, literally choking with mirth, “and very valuable. We brought it from the South Kensington, and are going to send it to the Metropolitan Museum as soon as we reach home.” “Maisie, how can you be so foolish!” protested her mother, roused by desperation to some faint semblance of authority, and visibly anxious to propitiate the inspector, who looked ominously angry. “If you will wrap such absurd things in white tissue paper, naturally people think they are of some value.”