In consequence of the superior manners of this girl she was admitted to a considerable share of the confidence and respect of both her master and her mistress, and was allowed an amount of discretion in the arrangements of the household which is not usually given or permitted in such cases. Mrs. Green contemplated, with her husband's approval, the extension of their establishment by the engagement of a third servant, and elevating this young woman to the position of a recognised companion to the lady. Some time after this notion had been formed, there was discovered a new series of annoyances in the house of Mr. Green. A number of portable articles of value were missed. How they went appeared one of the greatest of all possible human mysteries. Discovery seemed impossible, and the irritation of the husband was excessive. His wife, moreover, inveighed in the bitterest terms against the undetected thief. It was agreed between Mr. and Mrs. Green to lay all sorts of traps. They did so, but did not succeed in fixing any body with the crime. The reader will imagine how such an affair operated. Not only did suspicion begin with the lowest and end with the highest of the three servants in the household, but it embraced every one of the few friends who came to see Mr. or Mrs. Green; and in the failure to discover the delinquent, or get the foundation for a rational and decided suspicion, even supernatural agencies were beginning to be hinted at by the wife. She, however, always prefaced her hints of this kind to her husband as women do their ideas of that sort, by a declaration that she was not superstitious, but if she was, &c. &c. At length the loss of a gold watch, which Mr. Green had presented to his wife on her marriage, with a gold chain, drove that man pretty near the boundary of madness. When he first heard of it, he was frantic. He raved and he cursed, uttering language such as his wife had never heard from his lips before against some person or persons unknown, and vowing the direst vengeance against the offender. He declared that if he or she were his own brother or sister (which obviously could not be, as he had no brother or sister), he would transport him or hang him or her. And he also said that the worst feature of the case was the total impossibility in tracing the thief. He did not like to be beaten in that manner. It was so deuced aggravating not to know what had become of the things; that is, who had stolen them. It was such a hard thing to be suspecting all the servants and their friends. Was he to dismiss all the servants? If so, how did he know that he should then get rid of the thief? Was he to banish all his friends from his house? How did he know that it was some pretended friend that was robbing them? He finished in mutterings, which, although not capable of being accurately embalmed in printer's ink, may be safely interpreted as imprecations and direful threats.