lady had given me strict injunctions not to do so.”The safe, where the diamonds had always” been kept, stood by the bedside on the top of a black oak chest, and as I set to work on it with my tools, I couldn’t help laughing to think what a precious trick it was, searching for what I knew wasn’t there — for what I knew only too well was safe and snug in the lady’s keeping, if not actually on its way to Amsterdam to be sold!”It did not take me many seconds to crack the lid of the safe open, and I had just done so, when there was a blaze of light, a loud shriek, and, on turning round, I saw the lady.”Softly, ma’am,”” I whispered, “” you’re a bit” too soon! You should have waited till I was ready to be off. I have kept my part…

…youth was then closely watched, and on being observed to come up, about noon one day, to the door of his mistress’s apartment with a case-knife in his hand, he was stopped, and an explanation of his conduct was demanded. In reply, he said he intended going into the adjoining room — i.e. the room leading out of his mistress’s — to scrape the dirt off his master’s embroidered shirt.”The answer not being deemed at all satisfactory, he was taken aside and put to a searching examination, when he ended by confessing that he had” always remembered with indignation his master’s severity to him, and had fully resolved on revenge,” but in what manner he would not say. He was, of course, instantly discharged; and the lady and her husband congratulated themselves on their esc. From a horrible death — an escape which they confessed was entirely owing to the…