dear
there, and 'twould have cost more if I hadn't bought the raisins and
oranges some months ago, when they were cheaper. I tell you this because
we are old friends, and I have nobody else to tell my troubles to. But I
don't begrudge anything to ye since you've come.'

'I am not much pleased to come, even now,' said she. 'What can make you
so seriously anxious to see me?'

'Well, you be a good girl and true; and I've been thinking that of all
people of the next generation that I can trust, you are the best. 'Tis
my bonds and my title-deeds, such as they be, and the leases, you know,
and a few guineas in packets, and more than these, my will, that I have
to speak about. Now do ye come this way.'

'O, such things as those!' she returned, with surprise. 'I don't
understand those things at all.'

'There's nothing to understand. 'Tis just this. The French will be here
within two months; that's certain. I have it on the best authority, that
the army at Boulogne is ready, the boats equipped, the plans laid, and
the First Consul only waits for a tide. Heaven knows what will become o'
the men o' these parts! But most likely the women will he spared. Now
I'll show 'ee.'

He led her across the hall to a stone staircase of semi-circular plan,
which conducted to the cellars.

'Down here?' she said.

'Yes; I must trouble ye to come down here. I have thought and thought
who is the woman that can best keep a secret for six months, and I say,
"Anne Garland." You won't be married before then?'

'O no!' murmured the young woman.

'I wouldn't expect ye to keep a close tongue after such a thing as that.
But it will not be necessary.'

When they reached the bottom of the steps he struck a light from a tinder-
box, and unlocked the middle one of three doors which appeared in the
whitewashed wall opposite. The rays of the candle fell upon the vault
and sides of a long low cellar, littered with decayed woodwork from other
parts of the hall, among the rest stair-balusters, carved finials,
tracery panels, and wainscoting. But what most attracted her eye was a
small flagstone turned up in the middle of the floor, a heap of earth
beside it, and a measuring-tape. Derriman went to the corner of the
cellar, and pulled out a clamped box from under the straw. 'You be
rather heavy, my dear, eh?' he said, affectionately addressing the box as
he lifted it. 'But you are going to be put in a safe place, you know, or
that rasc