He then showed her how to set it, left the chest open, and gave her the key off his bunch that she might use it more easily.  Ere she returned it, she had made herself mistress of the escutcheon as far as the mere working of it was concerned, as she proved to the satisfaction of the inventor.

Her docility and quickness greatly pleased him.  He opened a cabinet, and after a search in its drawers, took from it a little thing, in form and colour like a plum, which he gave her, telling her to eat it.  She saw from his smile that there was something at the back of the playful request, and for a moment hesitated, but reading in his countenance that he wished her at least to make the attempt, she put it in her mouth.

She was gagged.  She could neither open nor shut her mouth a hair’s breadth, could neither laugh, cry out, nor make any noise beyond an ugly one she would not make twice.  The tears came into her eyes, for her position was ludicrous, and she imagined that his lordship was making game of her.  A girl less serious or more merry would have been moved only to laughter.

But lord Herbert hastened to relieve her.  On the application of a tiny key, fixed with a joint in a finger-ring, the little steel bolts it had thrown out in every direction returned within the plum, and he drew it from her mouth.

‘You little fool!’ he said, with indescribable sweetness, for he saw the tears in her eyes; ’did you think I would hurt you? ’

’No, my lord; but I did fear you were going to make game of me.  I could not have borne Caspar to see me so.’

‘Alas, my poor child!’ he rejoined, ’you have come to the wrong house if you cannot put up with a little chafing.  There!’ he added, putting the plum in her hand, ’it is an untoothsome thing, but the moment may come when you will find it useful enough to repay you for the annoyance of a smile that had in it ten times more friendship than merriment.’

‘I ask your pardon, my lord,’ said Dorothy, by this time blushing deep with shame of her mistrust and over-sensitiveness, and on the point of crying downright.  But his lordship smiled so kindly that she took heart and smiled again.

He then showed her how to raise the key hid in the ring, and how to unlock the plum.

‘Do not try it on yourself,’ he said, as he put the ring on her finger; ‘you might find that awkward.’

‘Be sure I shall avoid it, my lord,’ returned Dorothy.

‘And do not let any one know you have such a thing,’ he said, ’or that there is a key in your ring.’

‘I will try not, my lord.’

The breakfast bell rang.

‘If you will come again after supper,’ he said, as he pulled off his linen frock, ’I will show you my fire-engine at work, and tell you all that is needful to the understanding thereof;—­only you must not publish it to the world,’ he added, ’for I mean to make much gain by my invention.’