neighbours more than Lady Anne felt at this moment for robbing herself. Still, on accepting the key, she said with an air of great condescension:—
"I am sure Mrs. Wilkins this could not be in better hands than your own."
"Why as to looking sharp ater things, my lady, I may say for myself I can do that, and I'll be bound at this moment that the littlest tweedy pincushion ever was made could neither be taken from your ladyship's lot, nor our own lot, but I should miss it in a moment; 'once seen, always remembered,' is my motto; but, lor, my lady, what's the use o' missing a thing, when it's gone? and why should I increase my cares for this fancy fair, who am but a servant, my lady?"
With a wish, not very distantly related to a curse, did Lady Anne see Mrs. Wilkins flit past her window homewards, sensible that she was utterly foiled in her scheme for the present, as she recollected that she had heard the duchess herself boast of her maid's memory, which, like the well-known faculty of the royal family, always retained what it once admitted; "with this characteristic difference," said her grace, "they remember persons, and Wilkins remembers things, a very great property in those who have the care of a wardrobe."
Not to be able to select a single thing for her own use out of so many, which were bona fide her own property, to remember even the "beautiful loves of lace-trimmed cuffs," gone for ever, had no parallels,
