eft.
He would have turned up as usual next morning, and expressed great
surprise at the news. As it is he and Forbes are no doubt patiently
waiting until their sentences are out, expecting to slip back some dark
night and secure their prey. From such point of view it is a small
business to serve a few months when there's a fortune waiting at the
end! Well, this takes ten years off my back. I can't tell you how the
whole business has preyed on our minds. My dear fellow, I am so
thankful that your diamonds have turned up!"

"My dear fellow, it was fifteen times worse for you than for us! A most
uncomfortable position; I congratulate you a hundred times. Just in the
nick of time, too. In a month or so there would have been no bundle to
discover."

A general gasp at once of dismay and relief passed round the little
inner circle of those most nearly interested in the recovered treasures,
and the first excitement of recovery having passed, every one seemed
bent on lavishing thanks and praises upon the girl through whom the
happy discovery had come about.

"Who is she?"

"What is her name?"

"Where does she come from?" The questions buzzed on every side, and the
answer, "Lady Hayes's grand-niece," served only to enhance existing
attractions. Darsie found herself kissed, patted, embraced, called by a
dozen caressing names by half a dozen fine ladies in turn, during which
process every eye on the lawn was turned upon her blushing face.
Through a gap in the crowd she could see Lady Hayes holding as it were a
secondary court, being thanked effusively for possessing a grand-niece
with a faculty for recovering jewels, and bowing acknowledgments with a
bright patch of colour on either cheekbone. The position was so strange
and bewildering that even yet it seemed more like a dream than reality;
that sudden rain of jewels descending from the linen bag was the sort of
thing one might expect in an Arabian night adventure rather than in the
midst of a decorous English garden-party! It must surely be in
imagination that she, Darsie Garnett, has been hailed as a good fairy to
all these fashionably dressed men and women!

The almost hysteric effusion of the women who kissed and gushed around
her must surely have something infectious in its nature, since she
herself was beginning to feel an insane inclination to burst into tears
or laughter, it was immaterial which of the two it should be. Darsie
turned a quick look aroun