"Ay, but not too good!" Mrs. D---- answered shrilly, her head trembling with passion. "He and the hussy, that is gone, have robbed me of eighty guineas in a green bag, as I am prepared to swear!" "Sixty, Mrs. D----," said her husband, looking a warning at her and then askance at his neighbours. "Rot take the man, does it matter to a guinea or two?" she retorted--but her sallow face flushed a little. "At any rate," she continued, pressing her thin lips together, and nodding her head viciously, "sixty or eighty, they have taken them." It seemed, however, that even to that one of the neighbours had a word to say. "As to the girl, I am not so sure, Mrs. D----," he struck in ponderously. "If she is the wench that has been carrying on with the gentleman at the 'Rose,' she has had other fish to fry. Though I don't say, mind you, that she has _not_ been in this. Only----" But Mrs. D---- could restrain herself no longer. "Only! only! Gentlemen at the 'Rose'!" she cried. "Why, man, are you mad? What do you think has my maid--though maid she is not, but a dirty drab, and more is the pity I took her out of charity from the parish--she was Kitty Higgs's base-born brat as you know--what has she to do with gentlemen at the 'Rose'?" "Well, that is not for me to say," the man answered quietly. "Only I know that for a week or more a wench has been walking with the gentleman in the roads and so forth, by night as well as by day. I came on them twice myself hard by here; and though she was dressed more like a fine madam than a serving girl, I watched her into your house. And for the rest, Mrs. Harris must know more than I do." But Mrs. Harris, when Mrs. D---- turned on her in a white rage, could only cover her head and weep in a corner; as much, I believe, out of sorrow for me as on her own account. However, the fact that the good-natured woman had left Jennie pretty much to her own devices could not be gainsaid; and Mrs. D---- had much to say on it. But when she talked of sending after the baggage and jailing her, ay, and the gentleman at the "Rose" too, if he could not pay the money, the constable pursed up his lips. "It is to be remembered that he came with His Royal Highness, our gracious Prince," he said, swelling out his chest and puffing out his cheeks with importance. "And though it is true he ordered his horses and went for London last evening--as I know myself, having seen him go, and seen him before for the matter of that at Hertford Assizes, for he is a Counsellor--it does not follow that the wench went with him. Or, if she did, Mrs. D----, ----" "That she had anything to do with this money," the neighbour who had spoken before put in.