The Golden Slipper | Page 6

mere
tardiness. In fact, she had what might be called a frightened air, and

stared into her plate, avoiding every eye, which was certainly not
natural to her. What did it mean? and why, as she made a poor attempt
at eating, did four of the Inseparables exchange glances of doubt and
dismay and then concentrate their looks upon his daughter? That Alicia
failed to notice this, but sat abloom above her roses now fastened in a
great bunch upon her breast, offered him some comfort, yet, for all the
volubility of his chief guests, the meal was a great trial to his patience,
as well as a poor preparation for the hour when, the noble pair gone, he
stepped into the library to find Miss Strange awaiting him with one
hand behind her back and a piteous look on her infantile features.
"0, Mr. Driscoll," she began,--and then he saw that a group of anxious
girls hovered in her rear--"my pendant! my beautiful pendant! It is gone!
Somebody reached in from the balcony and took it from my dresser in
the night. Of course, it was to frighten me; all of the girls told me not to
leave it there. But I--I cannot make them give it back, and papa is so
particular about this jewel that I'm afraid to go home. Won't you tell
them it's no joke, and see that I get it again. I won't be so careless
another time."
Hardly believing his eyes, hardly believing his ears,--she was so
perfectly the spoiled child detected in a fault--he looked sternly about
upon the girls and bade them end the jest and produce the gems at once.
But not one of them spoke, and not one of them moved; only his
daughter grew pale until the roses seemed a mockery, and the steady
stare of her large eyes was almost too much for him to bear.
The anguish of this gave asperity to his manner, and in a strange,
hoarse tone he loudly cried:
"One of you did this. Which? If it was you, Alicia, speak. I am in no
mood for nonsense. I want to know whose foot traversed the balcony
and whose hand abstracted these jewels."
A continued silence, deepening into painful embarrassment for all. Mr.
Driscoll eyed them in ill-concealed anguish, then turning to Miss
Strange was still further thrown off his balance by seeing her pretty

head droop and her gaze fall in confusion.
"Oh! it's easy enough to tell whose foot traversed the balcony," she
murmured. "It left this behind." And drawing forward her hand, she
held out to view a small gold-coloured slipper. "I found it outside my
window," she explained. "I hoped I should not have to show it."
A gasp of uncontrollable feeling from the surrounding group of girls,
then absolute stillness.
"I fail to recognize it," observed Mr. Driscoll, taking it in his hand.
"Whose slipper is this?" he asked in a manner not to be gainsaid.
Still no reply, then as he continued to eye the girls one after another a
voice--the last he expected to hear--spoke and his daughter cried:
"It is mine. But it was not I who walked in it down the balcony."
"Alicia!"
A month's apprehension was in that cry. The silence, the pent-up
emotion brooding in the air was intolerable. A fresh young laugh broke
it.
"Oh," exclaimed a roguish voice, "I knew that you were all in it! But
the especial one who wore the slipper and grabbed the pendant cannot
hope to hide herself. Her finger-tips will give her away."
Amazement on every face and a convulsive movement in one half-
hidden hand.
"You see," the airy little being went on, in her light way, "I have some
awfully funny tricks. I am always being scolded for them, but somehow
I don't improve. One is to keep my jewelry bright with a strange foreign
paste an old Frenchwoman once gave me in Paris. It's of a vivid red,
and stains the fingers dreadfully if you don't take care. Not even water
will take it off, see mine. I used that paste on my pendant last night just
after you left me, and being awfully sleepy I didn't stop to rub it off. If

your finger-tips are not red, you never touched the pendant, Miss
Driscoll. Oh, see! They are as white as milk.
"But some one took the sapphires, and I owe that person a scolding, as
well as myself. Was it you, Miss Hughson? You, Miss Yates? or--" and
here she paused before Miss West, "Oh, you have your gloves on! You
are the guilty one!" and her laugh rang out like a peal of bells, robbing
her next sentence of even a suggestion of sarcasm. "Oh, what a
sly-boots!" she cried.