had
gained an hour's respite from their usual "bed-time" upon this, their
cousin's last night at home. Tom, and Will, and Sally, and Ben, had
indeed received the tidings of their beloved "Molly's" impending
departure with great dismay; and their vociferous lamentations were
hardly to be checked by their mother's assurances that one day "Cousin
Molly" might come back to see them, when she was "a great lady, riding
in her coach and six," and would bring them picture-books and gilt
gingerbread.

It was with a strange pang at her heart that Mary now submitted to the
loving, if rather boisterous, caresses of the urchins who climbed her
lap and clung around her neck.

But Mary had not chosen her quiet seat with a view to childhood's romps
or she had chosen a safer one. As it was the shout of merriment was
quickly followed by a sudden cry, a splash, and a simultaneous
exclamation of dismay from Mary and the children. Will, the youngest,
most troublesome, and therefore best beloved of the family, the
four-years-old "baby," had slipped on the curb of the well,
overbalanced himself, and fallen in; dropping a toy into the water as he
did so. In a moment Mary was on her feet. Seizing the bucket, she called
the elder boys to work the windlass, and, with firm, but quiet
instructions and a face as white as death, consigned herself to the
unknown deep.

Near the bottom of the well, which was not very deep, she came upon her
little cousin suspended by his clothes to a hook fastened in the well
side. She was not long in disengaging the little fellow's clothes from
the friendly hook, and was about to signal to be drawn up, when beneath
the hook, and explanatory of it--"near the water, by the fern"--what was
it? A large hole in the side of the well, and in it--the Trevern
treasure, found at last!

Though the lapse of many years had rotted some of the leather covering
of the jewel casket, the gems themselves, when lifted out, flashed forth
in undimmed beauty; the silver cups and flagons, if discoloured, were
still intact, and the papers in the metal case were well preserved.

These last proved of great importance to Roger Trevern, enabling him to
substantiate his claim to some disputed property, which was quite
sufficient to relieve his estate of all its embarrassments.

And as for Mary, she restored her youngest cousin to his mother's arms,
and took the eldest to her own.

A MEMORABLE DAY.

BY SARAH DOUDNEY.

Miss Til