cket to take to old David's friends somewheres, you may take my word
for 't, Mis' Deane, you'll find out as 'e was wot ye didn't expect. Onny
last night, as I was a-sittin' afore the kitchen fire, for though bein'
summer I'm that chilly that I feels the least change in the temper o'
the sea,--as I was a-sittin', I say, out jumps a cinder as long as a
pine cone, red an' glowin' like a candle at the end. An' I stares at the
thing, an' I sez: 'That's either a purse o' money, or a journey with a
coffin at the end'--an' the thing burns an' shines like a reg'lar spark
of old Nick's cookin' stove, an' though I pokes an' pokes it, it won't
go out, but lies on the 'erth, frizzlin' all the time. An' I do 'ope,
Mis' Deane, as now yer goin' off to 'and over old David's effecks to the
party interested, ye'll come back safe, for the poor old dear 'adn't a
penny to bless 'isself with, so the cinder must mean the journey, an'
bein' warned, ye'll guard agin the coffin at the end."

Mary smiled rather sadly.

"I'll take care!" she said. "But I don't think anything very serious is
likely to happen. Poor old David had no friends,--and probably the few
papers he has left are only for some relative who would not do anything
for him while he was alive, but who, all the same, has to be told that
he is dead."

"Maybe so!" and Mrs. Twitt nodded her head profoundly--"But that cinder
worn't made in the fire for nowt! Such a shape as 'twas don't grow out
of the flames twice in twenty year!"

And, with the conviction of the village prophetess she assumed to be,
she was not to be shaken from the idea that strange discoveries were
pending respecting "old David." Mary herself could not quite get rid of
a vague misgiving and anxiety, which culminated at last in her
determination to show Angus Reay the packet left in her charge, in order
that he might see to whom it was addressed.

"For that can do no harm," she thought--"I feel that he really ought to
know that I have to go all the way to London."

Angus, however, on reading the superscription, was fully as perplexed as
she was. He was familiar with the street near Chancery Lane where the
mysterious "Mr. Bulteel" lived, but the name of Bulteel as a resident in
that street was altogether unknown to him. Presently a bright idea
struck him.

"I have it!" he said. "Look here, Mary, didn't David say he used to be
employed in office-work?"

"Yes," she answered,--"He had to give up his situation, so I