Aunt Sarah had been for six weeks at a "Hydropathic Establishment" at Malvern. On the day fixed for her return, I left a very agreeable tennis party for the purpose of meeting her at the station, as was dutiful and proper. First I called at her house, to learn the exact time at which the train was expected at Paddington. It was rather sooner than I had supposed, so I hurried to find a cab, and urged the driver to drive his best. I am never lucky with cabs, however--nor, I begin to think, with anything else--and the horse, with all the cabman's efforts, never got beyond a sort of tumultuous shamble; and so I missed Aunt Sarah at Paddington. It was very annoying, and I feared she might take it ill, because she never made allowances for anybody's misfortunes but her own. However, I turned about and cabbed it back as fast as I could. She had been home nearly half an hour when I arrived, and was drinking her third or fourth cup of tea. She was not ill-tempered, on the whole, and she received my explanations with a fairly good grace. She had been a little better, she thought, during her stay at Malvern, but feared that her health could make no permanent improvement. And indeed there seemed very little room for improvement in Aunt Sarah's bodily condition, and no more room at all in her clothes. Then, in the regular manner, I inquired as to the well-being of the jewels. [Illustration: "SHE RECEIVED MY EXPLANATIONS WITH A FAIRLY GOOD GRACE."] The jewels, it seemed, were all right. Aunt Sarah had seen to that. She had herself stowed the case at the bottom of her biggest and strongest trunk, which was now upstairs, partly unpacked. My question reminded her, and she rose at once, to transfer her valuables to their permanent hiding-place. I heard Aunt Sarah going upstairs with a groan at every step, each groan answered by a loud creak from the woodwork. Then for awhile there was silence, and I walked to the French window to look out on the lawn and the carriage-drive. But as I looked, suddenly there came a dismal yell from above, followed by many shrieks. We--myself and the servants--found Aunt Sarah seated on a miscellaneous heap of clothes by the side of her big trunk, a picture of calamity. "Gone!" she ejaculated. "Stolen! All my jewels! Stop thief! Catch 'em! My jewel-case!" There was no doubt about it, it seemed. The case had been at the bottom of the big trunk--Aunt Sarah had put it there herself--and now it was gone. The trunk had been locked and tightly corded at Malvern, and it had been opened by Aunt Sarah's maid as soon as it had been set down where it now stood. But now the jewel-case was gone, and Aunt Sarah made such a disturbance as might be expected from the Constable of the Tower if he suddenly learned that the Crown of England was gone missing.