If I’d known what an important person Sara Dwight was going to turn out I’d have taken more notice of her. But, unfortunately, thieves don’t have a mark on their brow like Cain, and Sara was the last girl any one would have suspected was dishonest. All that I ever thought about her was that she was a neat, civil-spoken girl, who knew her betters and her elders when she saw them. She was quick on her feet, modest and well-mannered--not what you’d call good-looking: too pale and small for my taste, and Chawlmers quite agreed with me. The one thing I noticed about her were her hands, which were white and fine like a lady’s. Once when I asked her how she kept them so well, she laughed, and said, not having a pretty face, she tried to have pretty hands. “Because a girl ought to have something pretty about her, oughtn’t she, Miss Jeffers?” she said to me, quiet and respectful as could be. I answered, as I thought it was my duty, that beauty was only skin deep, and if your character was honest your face would take care of itself. She looked down at her hands, and smiled a little and said: “Yes, I suppose that’s true, Miss Jeffers. I’ll try to remember it. It’s what every girl ought to feel, I’m sure.” Sara Dwight had the greatest admiration for Lady Castlecourt. She’d manage to be standing about in doorways and on the stairs when my lady passed down to go to dinner and to the opera. Then she’d come back and tell me how beautiful my lady was, and how she envied me being her maid. While she was talking she’d help me tidy up the room, and sometimes--because she admired my lady so--I’d let her look at the new clothes from Paris as they hung in the wardrobe. Sara would gape with admiration over them. She spoke a little about my lady’s jewels, but not much. I’d have suspected that. It was in the fifth week after we came to town--to be exact, on the afternoon of the fourth day of May--that the diamonds were stolen. As I’d been so badgered and questioned and tormented about it, I’ve got it all as clear in my head as a photograph--just how it was and just what time everything happened. That evening my lady was going to dinner at the Duke of Duxbury’s. It was to be a great dinner--a prince and a prime minister, and I don’t know what all besides. My lady was to wear a new gown from Paris and the diamonds. She told me when she went out what she would want and when she would be back. That was at four, and I was not to expect her in till after six.