Through more crimson passages and flowers to the library, where a gay throng is assembled. We are now able to note the beauty of the ladies and their dresses, as they promenade to the inspiring sounds of glees, madrigals, and part-songs, given by the Orpheus Glee Union.

"Make way for the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress," suddenly cries the mace-bearer, and Alderman Lusk, Right Honourable, and Member of Parliament, walks through the crowd, with his lady. They stop to shake hands with our companion; the Lord Mayor, in allusion to his own pompous robes, whispers drily, "Solomon in all his glory," and passes on.

One group of officers in uniform and well-dressed handsome women, particularly attracts us. They are talking merrily, flirting possibly-as soldiers and women will-but they are gay and bright as May itself. Are they feather-bed soldiers? Scarcely; for they are bronzed and medalled. We pause, look, enquire, and are rewarded by hearing that we are close to the heroes of Coomassie and Ashantee. There is Sir Garnet Wolseley in general's uniform, with stars and crosses. He is short and young-looking—by nature fair, by Africa brown. He is laughing with all his heart. Close by is the broad-shouldered, stalwart soldier who first attracted us by his build and face: this is Festing, or Festung? (fortress) as is suggested. Sartorius, also, is at hand, who led the handful of Marines as a forlorn hope-young, brown, and handsome. A little man in plain morning dress is in their midst, who is, we hear, the renowned Sir John Glover. No wonder the pretty faces they look at smile and blush at such distinguished proximity, for we, who are not within the charmed circle, warm towards them, and wish them as good luck in love as in war.

Thus our third glimpse at Royalty is happily supplemented by a glance at Royalty's safeguard, Bravery.

ANNE BEALE.

THE DIAMOND

BRACELET.

By the Author of "EAST LYNNE."

I.

LITTLE man was striding about his library with impatient steps.

A He wore a wadded dressing-gown, handsome once, but re

markably shabby now, and he wrapped it closely round him, though the heat of the weather was intense. But Colonel Hope, large as were his coffers, never spent upon himself a superfluous farthing, especially in the way of personal adornment; and Colonel Hope would not have felt too warm, cased in sheepskins, for he had spent the best part of his life in India, and was, besides, of a chilly nature.

The colonel had that afternoon been made acquainted with an unpleasant transaction which had occurred in his house. The household termed it a mystery; he, a scandalous robbery: and he had written forthwith to the nearest chief police-station, demanding that an officer might be despatched back with the messenger, to investigate it. So there he was, waiting for their return in impatient expectation, and occasionally halting before the window, to look out on the busy London world.

The officer at length came, and was introduced. The colonel's wife, Lady Sarah, had joined him then; and they proceeded to give him the outline of the case. A valuable diamond bracelet, recently presented to Lady Sarah by her husband, had disappeared in a singular manner. Miss Seaton, the companion to Lady Sarah, had temporary charge of the jewel-box. She had brought it down the previous evening, Thursday, this being Friday, to the back drawing-room, and laid several pairs of bracelets out on a table, ready for Lady Sarah, who was going to the opera, to choose which she would wear when she came up from dinner. Lady Sarah chose a pair, and put, herself, the rest back into the box, which Miss Seaton then locked, and carried to its place upstairs. In the few minutes that the bracelets lay on the table, the most valuable one of all, a diamond, disappeared from it.

"I did not want this to be officially investigated; at least, not so quickly," observed Lady Sarah to the officer. "The colonel wrote for you quite against my wish."

"And so have let the thief get clear off, and put up with the loss !" cried the colonel. "Very fine, my lady."

"You see," added her ladyship, explaining to the officer, "Miss Seaton is a young lady of extremely good family. She is not a common companion; a friend of mine, I may rather say. She is of feeble constitution, and this affair has so completely upset her, that I fear she will be laid on a sick-bed."

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'It won't be my fault if she is," retorted the colonel, taking the mplied reproach to himself. "The loss of a diamond bracelet, worth two or three hundred guineas, is not to be hushed up. to be bought every day, Lady Sarah.”

They are not

The officer was taken to the room whence the bracelet disappeared. It presented nothing peculiar. It was a back drawing-room, the folding-doors between it and the front room standing open, the back window, a large one, looking out upon some flat leads. The officer seemed to take in the points of the double room at a glance: its folding-doors of communication, its two doors opening to the corridor outside, and its windows. He examined the latches of the two entrance doors, and he looked next from the front windows, and then from the one at the back. From the front windows ordinary ingress was impossible; it was nearly as much so from the back one. The officer leaned out for some time, but could make nothing of a case. shut in by a balcony that just encircled it. Below, two stories down, were the leads of the kitchens. The house was one of a row of houses, or terrace, and they all bore the same features: the leads running along below; the confining balconies to the windows on this floor above. But the windows could not be gained from the leads except by means of a ladder; and the balconies were not near each other.

The window was

"Nothing to be suspected there," concluded the officer, bringing in his head and shoulders. "I should like, if you please, ma'am, to see Miss Seaton."

Lady Sarah went for her, and brought her. A delicate girl with a transparent skin, looking almost too weak to walk. She was in a visible tremor, and shook as she stood before the police officer,: whose name, it turned out, was Pullet.

But he was a man of pleasant manners and speech, and he hastened to reassure her. "There's nothing to be afraid of, young lady," said he with a broad smile. "We are not ogres : though I do believe some timid folks look upon us as such. Just please to compose yourself, and tell me as much as you can recollect of this."

"I laid out the bracelets here," began Alice Seaton, putting her hands on the table underneath the window, not more to indicate it than to steady herself, for she was almost incapable of standing. "The diamond bracelet, the one lost, I placed just here," she added, touching the middle of the table at the back, "and the rest I put around it.” "It was worth more than any of the others, I believe, ma'am." "Much more," growled the colonel.

The officer nodded to himself, and Alice resumed.

"I left the bracelets, and went into the other room and sat down at one of the front windows

"With the intervening doors open, I presume."

"Wide open, as they are now," said Alice. "The other two doors

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were shut. Lady Sarah came up from dinner almost directly; and then, as it appears, the bracelet was not there.”

"You are quite certain of that?”

"I am quite certain," interposed Lady Sarah. “I looked particularly for that bracelet; not seeing it, I supposed Miss Seaton had not laid it out. I chose out a pair, put them on, returned the others to the box, and saw Miss Seaton lock it."

"Then you did not miss the bracelet at that time ?” questioned Mr. Pullet.

"I did not miss it in one sense, because I did not know it had been put out," returned her ladyship. "I saw it was not there."

"But did you not miss it?" he asked of Miss Seaton.

"I only reached the table as Lady Sarah was closing the lid of the box," she answered. "Lady Frances Chenevix had detained me in the front room."

"My sister," explained Lady Sarah. had come with me up from dinner."

“She is on a visit to me, and

"You say you went and sat in the front room," resumed the officer to Alice, in a quicker tone than he had used previously: "will you show me where ?"

Alice did not stir; she only turned her head towards the front room, and pointed to a chair a little drawn away from the window. "In that chair," she said. "It stood as it stands now."

The officer looked baffled. "You must have had the back room full in view from thence; both the door and window."

"Quite so," replied Alice. "If you will sit down in it, you will perceive that I had uninterrupted view, and faced the doors of both rooms." "I perceive that from here. And you saw no one enter !"

"No one did enter.

It was impossible anyone could do so, without my observing it. Had either of the doors been only quietly unlatched, I must have both heard and seen."

And yet the bracelet vanished!" interposed Colonel Hope. "They must have been confoundedly deep, whoever did it; but thieves are said to possess sleight of hand.”

"They are clever enough, some of them," observed the officer. "Rascally villains! I should like to know how they accomplished

this."

"So should I," significantly returned the officer. appears to me incomprehensible."

"At present it

There was a pause. The officer seemed to muse; and Alice, happening to look up, saw his eyes stealthily studying her face. It did not tend to reassure her.

"Your servants are trustworthy; they have lived with you some time ?" resumed Mr. Pullet, not apparently attaching much importance to what the answer might be.

"Were they all escaped convicts, I light on this," retorted Colonel Hope.

don't see that it would throw "If they came into the room

to steal the bracelet, Miss Seaton must have seen them."

"From the time you put out the bracelets, to that of the ladies coming up from dinner, how long was it?" inquired the officer of Alice.

"I scarcely know," panted she. What with his close looks and his close questions, her breath was growing short. "I did not take particular notice of the elapse of time: I was not well yesterday evening." "Was it half an hour?"

"Yes I daresay—nearly so."

"Miss Seaton," he continued, in a brisk tone, will you have any objection to take an oath before a magistrate-in private, you knowthat no person whatever, except yourself, entered either of these rooms during that period?"

Had she been requested to go before a magistrate to testify that she, herself, was the guilty person, it could scarcely have affected her more. Her cheek grew white, her lips parted, and her eyes assumed a beseeching look of terror. Lady Sarah Hope hastily pushed a chair behind her, and drew her down upon it.

"Really, Alice, you are very foolish to allow yourself to be excited about nothing," she remonstrated: "you would have fallen on the floor in another minute. What harm is there in taking an oath privately, when it is to further the ends of justice?"

The officer's eyes were still keenly fixed on Alice Seaton's, and she cowered visibly beneath his gaze. He was puzzled by her evident terror. "Will you assure me, on your sacred word, that no person did enter the room ?” he repeated, in a low, firm tone; which somehow carried to her the impression that he believed her to be trifling with them.

She looked at him; gasped, and looked again; and then she raised her handkerchief in her hand and wiped her damp and ashy face.

"I think some one did come in," whispered the officer in her ear ; "try and recollect who it was." And Alice fell back in hysterics, and was taken from the room.

"Miss Seaton has been an invalid for years; she is not strong like other people," remarked Lady Sarah. "I felt sure we should have a scene of some kind, and that is why I wished the investigation not to be gone into hurriedly."

"Don't you think there are good grounds for an investigation, sir?" testily asked Colonel Hope of the officer.

"I must confess I do think so, colonel," was the reply.

"Of course you hear, my lady. The difficulty is, how can we obtain the first clue to the mystery?"

"I do not suppose there will be an insuperable difficulty," observed Mr. Pullet. "I believe I have obtained one."