She remained with us until it was produced, in case Sergeant Cuff had any further request to make of her after looking at it.
The washing-book was brought in by Rosanna Spearman.

The girl had come down to breakfast that morning miserably pale and haggard, but sufficiently recovered from her illness of the previous day to do her usual work.

Sergeant Cuff looked attentively at our second housemaid--at her face, when she came in; at her crooked shoulder, when she went out.
"Have you anything more to say to me ?" asked my lady, still as eager as ever to be out of the Sergeant's society.
The great Cuff opened the washing-book, understood it perfectly in half a minute, and shut it up again.

"I venture to trouble your ladyship with one last question," he said.

"Has the young woman who brought us this book been in your employment as long as the other servants ?" "Why do you ask ?" said my lady.
"The last time I saw her," answered the Sergeant, "she was in prison for theft." After that, there was no help for it, but to tell him the truth.