dge.

On the morning of the third day, however, he saw that which made him
step indoors and mount to the attic under the cote. Having opened
with much caution a trap-door in the roof, he slipped an arm out and
captured a carrier pigeon.

The bird carried a note folded small and bound under its wing with a
thread of silk. Master Simon opened the note and read:

If you loves me as I loves you,
No knife can cut our loves in two.

He had prepared himself for a hearty chuckle; but he broke out with a
profuse perspiration instead. "Oh, this is hustling a man!" he
ingeminated, staring round the empty attic like a rabbit seeking a
convenient hole. "Not three weeks buried!" he added, with another
groan, and began to loosen his neck-cloth.

While thus engaged, he heard a flutter above the trap-door, and a
second pigeon alighted, with a second note, also bound with a silken
thread.

"Lor-a-mercy!" gasped Master Simon.

But the second note was written in a different hand, and ran as
follows:

"_I could die of shame. It was all that hussy of a girl. She did it
for a joke. I'll joke her. But what will you be thinking?--P. W._"

Master Simon rowed down to Ponteglos that very afternoon, and the two
carriers went back with him. Happiness seemed to have shaken its
wings and quite departed from "Pandora's Box"; but a twinkle of
something not entirely unlike hope lurked in the corners of the
waitress's eyes--albeit their lids were red and swollen--as she
ushered Master Simon into the best parlour.

"What can you be thinking of me?" began the widow. _Her_ eyes were
red and swollen, too.

"I've brought back the pigeons."

"I can never bear the sight of them again!"

"You might begin different, you know," suggested Master Simon,
affably. "Some little message about the weather, for instance.
Have you given that girl warning to leave?"

"You see, I'm so lonely here . . ."

Some three months after this, and on an exceptionally fine morning in
September, Master Simon put Harmony, his celebrated almond hen, into
her travelling hamper, and marched over to the crossroads to take
coach for Illogan, in the mining district, where the matches for the
championship cup were to be flown that year.

Now Ann the cook had ventured no less than five pounds upon Harmony.
Five pounds represented a half of her annual wage, and a trifle less
than half of her annual savings. Therefore she spent the greater
part of th