make out,
and sorted them and tied them up in bundles."

"Can you tell me whether they were Delavie wills?"

"I should think they were. I know that the oldest of all were Latin,
and I could make nothing out in them but something about _Manoriem_
and Carminster, and what looked like the names of some of the fields at
home."

"Do you think you could show me those slips?"

"I do not suppose any one has touched them."

"Then, my dear young lady, you would confer a great favour on me if you
would allow Mr. Belamour and myself to escort you to Delavie and show us
these papers. I fear it may be alarming and distressing."

"Oh no, sir, I know no harm can happen to me where Mr. Belamour is," she
said, smiling.

"It may be very important," he said, and she went to put on her hood.

"Surely," said Mr. Wayland, "the title-deeds cannot have been left
there?"

"No. The title-deeds to the main body of the property are at Hargrave's.
I have seen them, at the time of my brother's marriage; but still this
may be what was wanting."

"Yet the sending this child to search is presumption that no such
document existed."

"Of course no one supposed it did," said Mr. Wayland, on the defence
again.

Aurelia was quickly ready in her little hood and kerchief, and trim
high-heeled shoes. She was greatly surprised to find how near she had
been to her friends during these last few days of her captivity, and
when Madge obeyed the summons to the door, the old woman absolutely
smiled to see her safe, and the little terrier danced about her in such
transports that she begged to take him back with her.

She opened the door of the little empty book room, where nothing stood
except the old bureau. That, she said, had been full of letters, but all
the oldest things had been within a door opening in the wainscot, which
she should never have found had not Bob pushed it open in his search for
rats, and then she found a tin case full of papers and parchments, much
older, she thought, than the letters. She had tied them up together, and
easily produced them.

Mr. Wayland handed them to Mr. Belamour, whose legal eye was better
accustomed to crabbed old documents. A conversation that had begun
on the way about Fay and Letty was resumed, and interested both their
father and Aurelia so much that they forgot to be impatient, until
Mr. Belamour looked up from his examination, saying, "This is what was
wanting. Here is a grant in the 12th year of Hen