“Please,” she said, very quickly, “is this , and is Queen Anne dead?”
“Heaven forbid,” said everyone in the room; and Bet added, “La, child, don’t delay us with your prattle. The coach will be here at ten, and we must lie at Tonbridge to-night.”
So Elfrida, all eyes and ears, squeezed into a corner between a band-box and a roll of thick, pink-flowered silk and looked and listened.
Bet, she gathered, was her cousin—an Arden, too. She and Bet and the maids, and an escort of she couldn’t quite make out how many men, were to go down to Arden together. The many men were because of the Arden jewels, that had been reset in the newest mode, and the collar of pearls and other presents Uncle Arden had given to Bet; and the highwaymen, who, she learned, were growing so bold that they would attack
