"No, no, no, it's all right--_goodbye_," said every one. And a silence fell as he went slowly round the water-butt and the green yard-gate shut behind him. The silence was broken by Eliza.
"Give me up!" she said. "Give me up to break my heart in a prison cell!"
There was a sudden splash, and a round wet drop lay on the doorstep.
"Thunder shower," said Jimmy; but it was a tear from Eliza.
"Give me up," she went on, "give me up"--splash--"but don't let me be took here in the town where I'm known and respected"--splash. "I'll walk ten miles to be took by a strange police--not Johnson as keeps company with my own cousin"--splash. "But I do thank you for one thing. You didn't tell Elf as I'd stolen the ring. And I didn't"--splash--"I only sort of borrowed it, it being my day out, and my gentleman friend such a toff, like you can see for yourselves."
The children had watched, spellbound, the interesting tears that became visible as they rolled off the invisible nose of the miserable Eliza. Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke.
"It's no use your talking," he said. "We can't see you!"
"That's what _he_ said," said Eliza's voice, "but----"
"You can't see yourself," Gerald, went on. "Where's your hand?"
Eliza, no doubt, tried to see it, and of course failed; for instantly, with a shriek that might have brought the police if there had been any about, she went into a violent fit of hysterics. The children did what they could, everything that they had read of in books as suitable to such occasions, but it is extremely difficult to do the right thing with an invisible housemaid in strong hysterics and her best clothes. That was why the best hat was found, later on, to be completely ruined, and why the best blue dress was never quite itself again. And as they were burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as nearly under Eliza's nose as they could guess, a sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as the flame died between the quick hands of Gerald, showed but too plainly that Eliza's feather boa had tried to help.
It did help. Eliza "came to" with a deep sob and said, "Don't burn me real ostrich stole; I'm better now."
They helped her up and she sat down on the bottom step, and the children explained to her very carefully and quite kindly that she really was invisible, and that if you steal--or even borrow--rings you can never be sure what will happen to you.