THE MOONSTONE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," &c. &c.
CHAPTER VIII.

HERE, for one moment, I find it necessary to
call a halt.

On summoning up my own recollections—
and on getting Penelope to help me, by consulting
her journal—I find that we may pass pretty
rapidly over the interval between Mr. Franklin
Blake's arrival and Miss Rachel's birthday. For
the greater part of that time the days passed,
and brought nothing with them worth recording.
With your good leave, then, and with
Penelope's help, I shall notice certain dates only
in this place; reserving to myself to tell the
story day by day, once more, as soon as we get
to the time when the business of the Moonstone
became the chief business of everybody in our
house.

This said, we may now go on again—
beginning, of course, with the bottle of sweet-
smelling ink which I found on the gravel walk
at night.

On the next morning (the morning of the
twenty-sixth) I showed Mr. Franklin this article
of jugglery, and told him what I have already
told you. His opinion was, not only that the
Indians had been lurking about after the
Diamond, but also that they were actually
foolish enough to believe in their own magic—
meaning thereby the making of signs on a boy's
head, and the pouring of ink into a boy's hand,
and then expecting him to see persons and
things beyond the reach of human vision. In
our country, as well as in the East, Mr. Franklin
informed me, there are people who practise
this curious hocus-pocus (without the ink,
however); and who call it by a French name,
signifying something like brightness of sight.
"Depend upon it," says Mr. Franklin, "the
Indians took it for granted that we should keep
the Diamond here; and they brought their
clairvoyant boy to show them the way to it, if
they succeeded in getting into the house last
night."

"Do you think they'll try again, sir?" I
asked.

"It depends," says Mr. Franklin, "on what
the boy can really do. If he can see the
Diamond through the iron safe of the bank at
Frizinghall, we shall be troubled with no more
visits from the Indians for the present. If he
can't, we shall have another chance of catching
them in the shrubbery, before many more nights
are over our heads."

I waited pretty confidently for that latter
chance; but, strange to relate, it never came.

Whether the jugglers heard, in the town, of
Mr. Franklin having been seen at the bank,
and drew their conclusions accordingly; or
whether the boy really did see the Diamond where
the Diamond was now lodged (which I, for one,
flatly disbelieve); or whether, after all, it was a
mere effect of chance, this at any rate is the
plain truth—not the ghost of an Indian came
near the house again, through the weeks that
passed before Miss Rachel's birthday. The
jugglers remained in and about the town plying their
trade; and Mr. Franklin and I remained  waiting
to see what might happen, and resolute not
to put the rogues on their guard by showing our
suspicions of them too soon. With this report
of the proceedings on either side, ends all that
I have to say about the Indians for the
present.

On the twenty-ninth of the month, Miss
Rachel and Mr. Franklin hit on a new method
of working their way together through the time
which might otherwise have hung heavy on
their hands. There are reasons for taking
particular notice here of the occupation that
amused them. You will find it has a bearing on
something that is still to come.

Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward
rock ahead in life—the rock ahead of their own
idleness. Their lives being, for the most part,
passed in looking about them for something to
do, it is curious to see—especially when their
tastes are of what is called the intellectual sort
—how often they drift blindfold into some
nasty pursuit. Nine times out of ten they
take to torturing something, or to spoiling
something; and they firmly believe they are
improving their minds, when the plain truth is,
they are only making a mess in the house. I
have seen them (ladies, I am sorry to say, as
well as gentlemen) go out, day after day, for
example, with empty pill-boxes, and catch
newts, and beetles, and spiders, and frogs, and
come home and stick pins through the miserable
wretches, or cut them up, without a pang of
remorse, into little pieces. You see my young