The record-union., 1891-12-05
MRS. WESTERVELDT'S DIAMONDS.

"Mrs. Westerveldt's diamonds? By
Jove! she was hardly treated, poor
woman, at the time.''
IF you were worth anything, You
would tell us all about it, Fred"
'Oh! all right, I'm agreeable"
1T would show more becoming mod.
esty if you We're to leave that for others tc
say-let alone opinions differing
oh! you shut up, Dicky, and JUS
throw me cigar, will you? and Fll tell
you all about it.''
The two Westerveldts could hardly
be said to get along together, fought Oh
together is more correct word. She had
all the money, and he didn't even give
her the quid pro quo in love. She was
past her premiere jeltaeSSe, well into hel
| second, in fact, when he proposed TO hel
| land to her bedur yeue). She was q
widow, and she gave both love and
money-till he spent the latter and hall
killed the former, though it was still
| pretty vigorous when knew them. She
was bit jealous of him, perhaps of his
youth more than anything else, just as
any wife might be, who, pretty far down
the road of life herself, wants her hus-
| band to keep parallel with her. It's my
1
was awfully irritating. She was the sort
OF woman. you know, who waited till
| you had plunged yourself well back in
your armchair, and then would say: oh,
as you are up, do you mind giving me
my work-basket, it's in the next room?'
or, AS you're going upstairs, would you
! just bring dear Fido down with your
when you hadn't shown the least sign OF
stirring from where you were. Then,
too, she had that maddening way of shut
| ting her eyes with huttering sort o1
| movement you know the way some peo-
| pie have while she was talking. 1t al
/ ways made me long to skip out of the
room while she was doing it and peep
around the corner to watch her surprise
when she found had melted. 1t might
have cured her. She nursed me like any
| thing, though, when | was down with
| fever once, at Twivel; SO l back her all
through.
''He wasn't faithful to her either.
| happened to know of it, too, and it made
me feel regular snake all the time she
| was looking after me. But man has
such a way OF sitting tight on another
| fellows affairs, and SO / never told heI
! that he had flung away any amount OF
! her coin on Lilly Morrison. She thought
it all went on racing. OF course they
didn't know each other so well before
marriage. Matrimony is such an infalli-
|
worse luck. Mind you, very few out
siders knew of the cat and dog life they
led. Married folks hide their matrimon-
ial wounds with such divinity of courage
| All glory to them, say I. He was fond OF
music; and she like that American chap
-'didn'tknowa symphony from boiler
explosion She was fond of dabbing
away with brush in her hand-and he
hadn't half an eye for color, excepting
when Lilly put the layers on too thick;
| and so it went on Zig-Zag fashion.
| Il was stopping down at Iwivel one
summer, and the house was pretty full.
There was no one j particularly tancied
among the guests, so l kept my attention
to my hostess whom / could see was
suffering good deal of mental worry
besides, / really think that the cash had
begun to run short. She said to me once
l-awfully bitterly-'Give a man ''short
measure" Fred-do you know what
mean?-always give him light weight
if he bestows fourteen ounces avoirdu-
pois of love on you, give him only twelve
| ounces, it will keep him hanging on for
meant and that she regretted not hay
| ing acted on that principle herself.
'They were giving big dinner on the
| 10Th, and about three-quarters of an hour
! before any one had turned up Mr.. and
| Mrs. Westerveldt came into the drawing
| room Wl0G0 we W6r6 dll
| Mrs. Westerveldt said, in an awfully
agitated way:
"'Do you know that all of my dia-
monds have been stolen?' And Mr..
| Westerveldt broke in significantly with
I-'We'll not call them "stolen" till we'v
found out more about the case.'
''She had been pale enough to begin
with, but she went livid at the implied
insult. Ladies' diamonds he went on
with sneer, get lost in most extraordi-
nary ways sometimes, and are found, too,
| in remarkable fashions as well when the
husbands make fuss over it."
'It was Internally mean Of him, consid-
| ering he hadn't bought his wife's Jewels
and as the loss was all hers, it was
fore all her guests.
| ''She snapped out (she had right to be
a bit worked up, You don't suppose 1 M
likely to have stolen my own diamonds
| myself, am I?'
'He only raised his eyebrows like two
great marks of interrogation-and then
played the injured, patient husband fol
the rest OF the eevening-an it went dowr
with some of the women, and he got more
sympathy than he deserved.
i Mrs. WeSterveldtS neck looked bare
and rather unlovely, that night; she haC
intended wearing her diamonds, and
nothing would induce her to wear sub
nave you ever kIlOWU q woman
| with longiSh upper lip that you coulC
canoodle? / haven't. Next day dowr
came detective, and there was an awfu
Shindy. All the servants boxes routed
out, all the maids wearing an air of limo.
cence an inch deep on their faces, anC
tossing their heads at the sacrilege, anC
the butler getting drunk over it to cele-
brate the event, and Mr.. Westerveld
| scowling till he looked like an ugly
chimpanzee, and Mrs. w. aging twenty
years through it all, and miserable into
the bargain.
what was the detective like? Oh
let me see. A whitey-brown sort Of
Johnnie; nothing much about him thai
you could catch hold of by way of de.
call Gent n-ah, yahi How 1 bar the
species. He looked as solemn as
sphinx, and made US all feel jolly sight
| worse than we had felt before. Then of
he went again as quietly and discreetly as
if there had been another detective after
him.
"He used to send daily bulletins on the
case. 1t was always some rot about "a
promising clew,' which never fulfilled
itself.
lone day Mrs. Westerveldt came to mt
| with a telegraph form in her hand
Fred, want you to do something
for me. [ would have asked my hus.
| Dauu IL Ne WerenI Z away In town. dom
believe that the detective we've got al
present is any good, do you? He wears
| whiskers, and his hairs such horrid
color, isn't it? ] want you, please, dear
to take this yourself to the Postoffice. ]
don't think that Mr.. Westerveldt car
have stated the gravity of the case, wher
he telegraphed for the first man, and sc
Pm sending off to Scotland Yard for an.
other, in the hopes that he will be more
successful There's so much at stake
Fred'-her voice quavered bit-'my
I husband thinks that / know something
about the diamonds she went on in
/ 1uhiSnar tIt,s 40 hard 60 hard u nd cI1