the very words out of your mouth, Doctor,
them would be the ones. And if I've took it to my own rebuke one
half-a-dozen times, it's been nearer fifty. Laid awake I have in my
bed, sat down in my chair I have, the same you and Miss Mary gave me
the day I was twenty year in your service, and no person could desire
a better--yes, Miss Mary, but it _is_ the truth, and well we know who
it is would have it different if he could. "All very well," says I to
myself, "but pray, when the Doctor calls you to account for that box,
what are you going to say?" No, Doctor, if you was some masters I've
heard of and I was some servants I could name, I should have an easy
task before me, but things being, humanly speaking, what they are, the
one course open to me is just to say to you that without Miss Mary
comes to my room and helps me to my recollection, which her wits
_may_ manage what's slipped beyond mine, no such box as that, small
though it be, will cross your eyes this many a day to come.'

"'Why, dear Mrs. Maple, why didn't you tell me before that you wanted
me to help you to find it?' said my Mary. 'No, never mind telling me
why it was: let us come at once and look for it.' They hastened off
together. I could hear Mrs. Maple beginning an explanation which, I
doubt not, lasted into the furthest recesses of the housekeeper's
department. Uncle Oldys and I were left alone. 'A valuable servant,'
he said, nodding towards the door. 'Nothing goes wrong under her: the
speeches are seldom over three minutes.' 'How will Miss Oldys manage
to make her remember about the box?' I asked.

"'Mary? Oh, she'll make her sit down and ask her about her aunt's last
illness, or who gave her the china dog on the mantel-piece--something
quite off the point. Then, as Maple says, one thing brings up another,
and the right one will come round sooner than you could suppose.
There! I believe I hear them coming back already.'

"It was indeed so, and Mrs. Maple was hurrying on ahead of Mary with
the box in her outstretched hand, and a beaming face. 'What was it,'
she cried as she drew near, 'what was it as I said, before ever I come
out of Dorsetshire to this place? Not that I'm a Dorset woman myself,
nor had need to be. "Safe bind, safe find," and there it was in the
place where I'd put it--what?--two months back, I daresay.' She handed
it to Uncle Oldys, and he and I examined it with some interest, so
that I ceased to pay attention to Mrs. Ann Maple for the