If anything is ever found out, it will be Ben who will be in trouble, not I." It was not long before Mrs.Hamilton discovered her loss.

She valued the missing opera glass, for reasons which need not be mentioned, far beyond its intrinsic value, and though she could readily have supplied its place, so far as money was concerned, she would not have been as well pleased with any new glass, though precisely similar, as with the one she had used for years.

She remembered that she had not replaced the glass in the drawer, and, therefore, searched for it wherever she thought it likely to have been left.

But in vain.
"Ben," she said, "have you seen my glass anywhere about ?" "I think," answered Ben, "that I saw it on your desk." "It is not there now, but it must be somewhere in the house." She next asked Mrs.Hill.

The housekeeper was entirely ignorant of Conrad's theft, and answered that she had not seen it.
"I ought not to have left it about," said Mrs.Hamilton.