THE STOLEN TREASURE.

PART FIRST.

"I AM going to tell you," said Sophia West, "how one of my schoolfellows stole something. It was a valuable thing." "Stole something!" I exclaimed. "What! were there

thieves at your school?"

She laughed, and answered, "One arrant thief there certainly was, but society has not visited the fault upon her, and, for anything I know to the contrary, she goes on stealing to this day."

I had been at school rather more than a year, when my class-fellows Margaret and Juliet left us, and were succeeded by Caroline Baker, and after an interval of three months by Christiana Black, a girl of Scotch parentage, who was at first a good deal overlooked in the school, owing to her retiring disposition.

But perhaps another reason why she was overlooked was that the school generally took such a very great interest in Caroline, who presently was in everybody's confidence, and had something so engaging and fascinating about her that all the girls loved her, without precisely knowing why.

Among the different faculties bestowed upon us there is none more unequally divided than the power of attracting affection and creating interest. It is very well to say that affection springs from approval, and that we love what we esteem; this is only true in a very limited sense, and that natural, inevitable fascination which draws us to some person, and which those who possess it are always desirous to exercise, has little more dependence on esteem than has the love of the mother for her six months' old child.

This power was strongly shown by our schoolfellow, Caroline. She had not been among us a week before every one was ambitious to give her anything she took a fancy to, every one wanted to walk with her, the girls offered to change gardens with her if she showed the least preference for their gardens over her own, and the little ones were always persisting, each one, that it was her turn to sit next Miss Baker, or that she had been promised that she should help Miss Baker to put her drawers to rights.

But the nature of the charm which so attracted us is not easy to define; and its cause, strange as it may seem, partly arose from what every one would acknowledge to be a defect.

She was capricious, and very changeable in her moods and fancies. Never two days alike, she kept us constantly surprised sometimes vehement and full of life, sometimes languid and gentle. One day she would be earnest, affectionate, or pensive, inviting confidence, and willing to give it; and the next, perhaps, wearily turning away from the exhibition of that loving interest that she had excited.

She was about sixteen when she came to school, and was rather small and slender for her years. Her appearance, as she looked when first presented to us by Madame, is so fresh in my memory that in describing her I feel as if painting from the life.

She was dressed in white, and wore a crimson shawl over her shoulders, for the weather was chilly, and she was a native of the West Indies. She was holding her bonnet in her hand, and stood quite still as we arose and walked up to her to be introduced. She had small features, and was pretty, her shining hair was unusually abundant, and of a light brown colour; it was a good deal brushed back from her face in a style that was not common then, but which evidently would be comfortable in the hot climate that she had come from. Her eyes were of the same nut-brown hue as her hair, and had that peculiar clearness which causes one apparently to see far down into them; and the well-formed, narrow, black eyebrow gave a great deal of its expression to her face, being sometimes slightly elevated with an air of amusement or surprise, and sometimes suddenly pulled down, with a look of displeasure and gloom.

I give this circumstantial account of her for the use of the physiognomist, and must add to it that she had a pretty mouth, which was dimpled, and almost infantine in its sweetness. She seemed to fancy herself greatly our superior; but there was something extremely engaging in the shy smile with which she looked at each as Madame named her, standing as she did, with her head a little thrown back, and with her eyelids not quite so far apart as we English-bred girls were accustomed to wear them. In two or three days she discovered that her schoolfellows were her equals; and in two or three more she found that, compared with most of them, she knew next to nothing; but she did not seem to feel this at all a degradation; and the perfection of her manners, and her native elegance, caused the masters to treat her with as much consideration as they did the eldest pupil in the house.

There was something about Caroline which caused her easily to win her way everywhere; even Madame was not

always proof against her charming manner, and the teachers openly favoured her in her lessons; but that did not cause any jealousy, because she was every one's favourite.

In the finest of the harvest weeks occurred Caroline's birthday, and she electrified the second class by declaring, the night before, that she intended to ask Madame for a holiday. Now when an old colonel from India, coming to see his daughters, or the Bishop of passing through, had begged that his little girls might have a holiday to play with their schoolfellows, it had always been graciously granted; but that a pupil should ask such a favour had never entered the mind of the eldest or the most daring; accordingly when we assembled in the schoolroom, and Caroline went up to Madame's table, and with a pretty gravity of manner informed her of the important fact, and inquired whether the school might have a holiday, Madame was mute with astonishment, and all the classes were breathless through suspense. "Doubtless you have not been told, Miss Baker," said Madame, recovering herself, "that birthdays are not kept here.'

Madame spoke in French: Caroline made no answer. She had been informed of the fact, but it did not suit her to say so, and she continued to look at Madame, till, finding that the latter expected a reply, she said, in the sweetest tones of her winning voice, and in broken French, that "Madame was so kind-so very kind-and-it was such a fine day."

"Is that all you have to say?" asked Madame, with a smile of amusement.

"Madame," said Caroline, taking to her mother tongue, and speaking with a plaintive sweetness that infinitely became her, "I have looked in my French conversations, and there are no sentences in it that tell how to ask for a holiday.'

Madame cast a penetrating glance on Caroline, which seemed to say, Is this simplicity, or the perfection of acting? and she evidently remained in doubt; but Caroline met the glance without blushing, and Madame, a little irritated at being so puzzled, escaped, for the moment, from a direct answer to the request by saying, with some asperity, "I cannot possibly allow English to be spoken before me.'

At this point it may be considered that the holiday was all but won, for though Madame was not pleased, she had condescended to parley, and Caroline was too clever to let her advantage slip away, so she answered in such broken French as made all the girls smile, bringing in the name of Madame's favourite pupil, and saying that if Madame would be pleased

to let Mary l'Estrange ask for the holiday, she was sure Madame would find no faults in her French, and she would leave it to Mary to make an excuse for her if she had done wrong.

Madame looked surprised; but she had allowed the conference to proceed, and did not wish to deny the holiday, as she had permitted us to hope for it.

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Well," she said more graciously, "let Mary speak, then; but let it be fully understood, young ladies, that I am never to be asked for a holiday on a birthday again."

So Mary l'Estrange did, in respectful language, and in excellent French, ask for the holiday, and Madame told us we might shut up our books and do as we pleased for the day.

We all poured out to the lawn and clustered about Caroline, the heroine of the day. We sat down under the shade of the willow-trees and considered what we should do. It was a sultry day, and the air was filled with tiny black flies like morsels of thread-the deep blue sky was pure and cloudless, and transparent waves appeared to chase one another over the roof of the house. Miss Quain began to explain to us the nature of the phenomenon, but it was a holiday, so we scarcely cared to listen. Caroline had never been so delighted with the weather as that day; it had not been warm enough to please a native of the warm south, and she proposed that we should all take a walk into the harvest-feld to see the people gleaning, a sight she had never seen. We did not think of objecting, but sent Nannette in to ask Madame's permission, which we presently obtained, together with a promise that we should have some fruit to take with us and some bread and milk.

I was specially excepted from the arrangement, not being thought strong enough to bear the noonday sun; but Madame gave me a little indulgence at home which reconciled me to the privation; and then having seen pupils and teachers leave the house in high spirits, she took the opportunity to go out herself, and I heard her tell Massey that she should not be home for some hours.

I had been in the garden for a long time, and in returning to the house was surprised to see a black man walking alone on the gravel, and carrying a fair English baby in his arms.

He was dressed in wide white trousers, an ample white muslin turban, and a red calico jacket with a muslin one over it; and to complete his costume, had a shawl tied about his waist which formed both a petticoat and a scarf.

I had not so far forgotten the scenes of my infancy (for I was born at Madras) as not to know that this was a Hindoo

bearer, and that he was drowsily singing the child to sleep with words that I had heard before

"Niendee, baba, niendee."

(Sleep, baby, sleep.)

I stood listening to the song, remembering enough of Hindostanee to make out that this eastern nurse was informing his unconscious charge that his father was a "burra Sahib" (great man or lord), and that his mother was a burra Beebee (a great lady), and that if the chota Sahib (little master) would be good enough to go to sleep, he would confer a lasting obligation on his bunda (slave). While I still listened, Massey came out and said, "O Miss West! what an unfortunate thing it is that Madame should be out, for a lady and gentleman are here who particularly wish to see her; they were not expected till tomorrow; and will you please to come in, Miss, for they wish to see any of the young ladies that are at home."

I should have mentioned that a travelling carriage stood at the door, and that servants were busy taking down boxes from it.

I went into the drawing-room, and stood for a minute or two within the door unnoticed, and looking at the group before me.

There was an ayah in the room. She was richly dressed in shawls, silk petticoats, and fine muslin drapery, and wore gold bangles on her ankles and wrists. She was holding some Indian toys in her hands, and looking attentively at a lady who was seated on a sofa near her, with a gentleman standing on one side of her, and a sweet little child on the other.

This lady was tall and fair. I noticed a peculiar quivering and trembling about her lips, as if she had great difficulty in controlling herself from weeping, and the gentleman, as he stood beside her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said, very gently and compassionately, "Now, dearest, shall we kiss our little one-and"-I knew that the rest of the sentence should have been-" and leave her;" but he did not say those words. And the lady, whose lips were now firmly and steadily set together, did not answer a syllable, but kept gazing at the tiny child with its white frock and pretty inquisitive face that looked up to her so shrewdly, and yet with such a wistful air, as if it was quite impossible for her to see or hear anything else.

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Now, dearest," said the gentleman again.

The mother breathed quickly-and I shall never forget the agony of her brow-but she neither stirred nor took her eyes from the face of the child.