the girl,
nervously jerking back the bag, and following her conductor into the
house and up stairs.

An unlikely house to be the shelter of thieves and the receptacle of
stolen goods. There was a look of sober respectability about its
dinginess that might have appertained to a suburban doctor with a large
family and a small practice. An old oil cloth, whole, but with its
pattern half washed off, covered the narrow hall--an old stair-carpet of
originally good quality, but now thread-bare in places, covered the
steps. This was all that could be seen from the open door by any chance
caller. But upstairs all was very different.

As the girl reached the landing, the old woman opened a door on her left
and ushered her into a bright, glaring room, filled up with cheap new
furniture, in which blinding colors and bad taste predominated. Carpets,
curtains, chair and sofa covers, and hassocks, all bright scarlet;
cornices, mirrors, and picture frames, (framing cheap, showy pictures,)
all in brassy looking gilt. Through this sitting-room the girl passed
into a bedroom, where, also, the furniture was in scarlet and gilt,
except the white draperied bed and the dressing-table. Here the girl
threw herself down in an easy-chair saying:

"I'll just bide here a bit and wash my face and hands, while ye'll gae
bring my breakfast."

"Yes, ma'am. What would you like to have?" inquired the woman.

"Ait meal parritch, fust of a', to begin wi' twa kippered herrings; a
sausage; a beefsteak; twa eggs; a pot o' arange marmalade; a plate of
milk toast, some muffins, and some fresh rolls," concluded the girl.

"Anything more, ma'am?" dryly inquired Mrs. Rogers.

"Nay--ay! Ye may bring me a mutton chop, wi' the lave."

"Tea or coffee, ma'am?"

"Baith, and mak' haste wi' it," answered the girl.

The old woman, smiling to herself, went out.

The girl being left alone, fastened both doors of her room, hung napkins
over the key-holes, drew close the scarlet curtains of her windows, and
then sat down on the floor and opened the bag and turned out its contents
on the carpet.

Fortunatus! what a sight! Well might her fellow-passenger have heard
a crash when the bag slipped from her lap to the bottom of the car!

About twelve little canvas bags filled with coins, and marked variously
on the sides--L50, L100, L500, L1,000.

She gazed at the treasure in a sort of rapture of possession! How fast
her heart beat! She did not think that there was