"Ungrateful wretch!... reproaching me with not spending my last shilling in buying pianofortes! But I will tell you, miss, what your fine singing shall end in.... You shall go upon the stage ... mark my words ... you shall go upon the stage, Miss Willoughby, and sing for your bread. No husband of mine shall ever be taxed to maintain such a mean-spirited, ungrateful, conceited upstart as you are!" Agnes attempted no farther explanation; and the silent tears these revilings drew, were too well in accordance with her worn-out spirits and sinking heart to be very painful. She only longed for her closet, and the unbroken stillness of night, that she might shed them without fear of interruption. But this was destined to be a night of disappointments, for even this melancholy enjoyment was denied her. On arriving at their lodgings, the door was opened by the servant of the house; and when Mrs. Barnaby imperiously demanded, "Where is my maid?... where is Jerningham?" she was told that Jerningham had gone out, and was not yet returned. Now Jerningham was an especial favourite with her mistress, being a gossip and a sycophant of the first order; and the delinquency of not being come home at very nearly one o'clock in the morning, elicited no expression of anger, but a good deal of alarm. "Dear me!... what can have become of her?... Poor dear girl, I fear she must have met with some accident!... What o'clock was it when she went out?"... Such questionings lasted till the stairs were mounted, and the lady had entered her bed-room. But no sooner did she reach the commode and place her candle upon it, than she uttered a tremendous scream, followed by exclamations which speedily explained to Agnes and the servant the misfortune that had befallen her. "I am robbed--I am ruined!... Look here!... look here!... my box broken open, and every farthing of money gone.... All my forks too!... all my spoons, and my cream-jug, and my mustard-pot!... I am ruined--I am robbed!... But you shall be answerable,--the mistress of the house shall be answerable.... You must have let the thieves in ... you must, for the house-door was not broke open." The girl of the house looked exceedingly terrified, and asked if she had not better call up her mistress. "To be sure you had, you fool!... Do you think I am going to sleep in a room where thieves have been suffered to enter while I was out?... How do I know but they may be lurking about still, waiting to murder me?" The worthy widow to whom the house belonged speedily joined the group in nightcap and bedgown, and listened half awake to Mrs. Barnaby's clamorous account of her misfortune. As soon as she began to understand the statement, which was a good deal encumbered by lamentations and threats, the quiet little old woman, without appearing to take the least offence at the repeated assertion that she must have let the thieves in herself, turned to her servant and said,-- "Is the lady's maid come in, Sally?"