geour turned the
corner.

Suddenly Gavinia felt an exquisite thrill: a man was pursuing her. She
slipped the paper-bag out of sight, holding it dexterously against her
side with her arm, so that the gravy should not spurt out, and ran.
Lights flashed, a kingly voice cried "Now!" and immediately a petticoat
was flung over her head. (The Lady Griselda looked thin that evening.)

Gavinia was dragged to the Lair, and though many a time they bumped her,
she still tenderly nursed the paper-bag with her arm, or fondly thought
she did so, for when unmuffled she discovered that it had been removed,
as if by painless surgery. And her captors' tongues were sweeping their
chins for stray crumbs.

The wench was offered her choice of Stroke's gallant fellows, but "Wha
carries me wears me," said she, promptly, and not only had he to carry
her from one end of the Den to the other, but he must do it whistling as
if barely conscious that she was there. So after many attempts (for she
was always willing to let them have their try) Corp of Corp, speaking
for Sir Joseph and the others, announced a general retreat.

Instead of taking this prisoner's life, Stroke made her his tool,
releasing her on condition that every seventh day she appeared at the
Lair with information concerning the doings in the town. Also, her name
was Agnes of Kingoldrum, and, if she said it was not, the plank. Bought
thus, Agnes proved of service, bringing such bags of news that Stroke
was often occupied now in drawing diagrams of Thrums and its
strongholds, including the residence of Cathro, with dotted lines to
show the direction of proposed underground passages.

And presently came by this messenger disquieting rumors indeed. Another
letter, being the third in six months, had reached the Dovecot,
addressed, not to Miss Ailie, but to Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty had been
dead fully six years, and Archie Piatt, the post, swore that this was
the eighteenth, if not the nineteenth, letter he had delivered to her
name since that time. They were all in the same hand, a man's, and there
had been similar letters while she was alive, but of these he kept no
record. Miss Ailie always took these letters with a trembling hand, and
then locked herself in her bedroom, leaving the key in such a position
in its hole that you might just as well go straight back to the kitchen.
Within a few hours of the arrival of these ghostly letters, tongues were
wagging about them, but to the two