he registries of the last
sixty years.

I searched in vain. After groping amongst the names of all the
nonentities who had been married at Huxter's Cross since the beginning
of the century, I found myself no nearer the secret of Charlotte
Meynell's marriage. And then I reflected upon all the uncertainties
surrounding that marriage. Miss Meynell had gone to Yorkshire, to visit
her mother's relations, and had married in Yorkshire; and the place
which Anthony Sparsfield remembered having heard of in connection with
that marriage was Huxter's Cross. But it did not by any means follow
that the marriage had taken place at that obscure village. Miss Meynell
might have been married at Hull, or York, or Leeds, or at any of the
principal places of the county. With that citizen class of people
marriage was a grand event, a solemn festivity; and Miss Meynell and
her friends would have been likely to prefer that so festive an
occasion should be celebrated anywhere rather than at that forgotten
old church among the hills. "I shall have to search every register in
Yorkshire till I light upon the record I want," I thought to myself,
"unless Sheldon will consent to advertise for the Meynell marriage
certificate. There could scarcely be danger in such an advertisement,
as the connection between the name of Meynell and the Haygarth estate
is only known to ourselves."

Acting upon this idea, I wrote to George Sheldon by that afternoon's
post, urging him to advertise for descendants of Miss Charlotte Meynell.

Charlotte! dear name, which is a kind of music for me. It was almost a
pleasure to write that letter, because of the repetition of that
delightful noun.

The next day I devoted to a drive round the neighbourhood, in a smart
little dog-cart, hired on very moderate terms from mine host. I had
acquainted myself with the geography of the surrounding country; and I
contrived to visit every village church within a certain radius of
Huxter's Cross. But my inspection of mildewed old books, and my heroic
endurance of cold and damp in mouldy old churches, resulted in nothing
but disappointment.

I returned to my "Magpie" after dark a little disheartened and
thoroughly tired, but still very well pleased with my rustic quarters
and my adopted county. My landlord's horse had shown himself a very
model of equine perfection.

Candles were lighted and curtains drawn in my cosy little chamber, and
the table creaked beneath one of those luxurio