ties. She had a clear head, and seemed to
have grasped every point in the matter. There was really no reason why
she should not succeed. There must be a spring somewhere, and if she
was as patient as she declared herself to be, she would surely find it
sooner or later; that is, if she could carry out her search without
exciting suspicion.

The first difficulty was to get her settled at the Hall. What was the
best way to set about that? It certainly was not as easy as she seemed
to think, still there must be some way of managing it. At any rate he
must act cautiously in the matter, and must not appear in it in any
way personally. And so he sat thinking, until at last the clerk, who
had been a good deal surprised at receiving no instruction from him as
to several matters he had in hand, knocked at the door, and came in
with a number of papers, and Mr. Tallboys was obliged to dismiss the
matter from his mind for a time, and to attend to present business.
The very next morning Mrs. Conway received the note, and again went to
the office.

"Do you know, Mrs. Conway," he began, as soon as his client entered,
"the more I think over the matter, the more I feel that it is
extremely difficult to manage it from here. I should have to engage
some one to go over in the first place. He would have to stay in the
village some time before he could make the acquaintance of the
servants at the Hall. He would have to get very intimate with them
before he could venture to broach such a thing for if he made a
mistake, and the woman told her mistress that some one had been trying
to persuade her to leave in order to introduce another into the place,
their suspicions would be so aroused that the scheme would become
hopeless."

"Yes, I see the difficulty, Mr. Tallboys; for I thought it over in
every way before I came to you. Beside I don't like the thought of
this intermediate. No doubt you would choose a trustworthy man. Still
I don't like the thought of any one knowing the secret, especially as
the plan may take so long working out."

"What I have been thinking, Mrs. Conway is this. No doubt the servants
at the Hall have taken sides on this matter. Of course from our
searches there they know that Mr. Penfold's will is missing, and that
it is because it is missing that the Miss Penfolds are now mistresses
there. Without knowing anything myself about the feelings of the
servants there, beyond what would probably be the case from the
differ