rs. Harding and Whiteway
announced that all formalities were complete; and three days later a
bill appeared on the whitewashed front of Minden Cottage announcing
that this desirable freehold residence with two and a half acres of
land would be sold by public auction on August 6, at 1.30 o'clock
p.m., in the Royal Hotel, Plymouth. Any particulars not mentioned in
the bills would be readily furnished on application at the office
of the vendor's solicitors; and parties wishing to inspect the
premises might obtain the keys from Miss Belcher's lodge-keeper,
Mr. Polglaze--that is to say, from the nearest dwelling-house down
the road.

Plinny, with the help of half a dozen of Miss Belcher's men and a
couple of waggons, had employed these three days in removing our
furniture to the great cricket pavilion above the hill; an excellent
storehouse, where, for the time, it would remain in charge of Mr.
Saunders, the head keeper. We ourselves removed to the shelter of
Miss Belcher's lordly roof, as her guests; and Ann, the cook, to a
cottage on the home farm, where that lady--who usually superintended
her own dairy--had offered her the post of _locum tenens_ until our
return from foreign travel. By the morning when the bill-poster came
and affixed the notice of sale, Minden Cottage stood dismantled--a
melancholy shell, inhabited only by memories for us, and for our
country neighbours by mysterious ghostly terrors.

This was one of the many grounds on which we agreed that the Lord
Chancellor had acted foolishly in insisting upon a public auction.
His lordship, to be sure, could not be expected to know that recent
events had utterly depreciated the selling value of Minden Cottage
over the whole of the south and east of Cornwall; that the
homeward-trudging labourer would breathe a prayer as he neared it
along the high-road in the dark, and would shut his eyes and run by
it, nor draw breath until he reached the lodge, down the road; that
quite a number of Christian folk who had been used to envy my father
the snuggest little retreat within twenty miles would now have
refused a hundred pounds to spend one night in it. So it was,
however; and the chance of an "out"-bidder might be passed over as
negligible. On the other hand, Miss Belcher had offered Messrs.
Harding and Whiteway a handsome and more than sufficient price for
the property. She wanted it to round off her estate, out of which,
at present, it cut a small cantle and at