nrietta was afraid of
falling into the hands of her family. Hum! how nice it would be to find
out!

The packet was tied up--naturally! But it was possible to undo and then
retie the knots in just the same way as before, so that nobody would be
any the wiser. To an honourable man, indeed, the mere knowledge that
another's secret was concealed therein which he was bidden to guard
would have been as invincible an impediment as unbreakable bolts and
bars; but the worthy fellow reassured himself with the reflection that,
after all, he was not going to tell anybody the contents of these
documents, and he so very much longed to know what it could be that Miss
Henrietta was so anxious to hide away, and old Lapussa would so much
like to find out. As if he would ever betray the secret of such a nice,
kindly creature to such an old dragon! Why, he would rather have his
tongue torn out than betray it!--but know it he must and would!

So he locked himself up in his little room on the third storey, and very
cautiously opened the bundle which was enwrapped in I know not how many
folds of paper and greedily devoured the contents of the various
documents.

But how great was his fury when, instead of the expected secrets, he
found nothing but dull Latin exercises, wearisome rhetorical
commonplaces on such subjects as the charms of spring and summer, the
excellence of agriculture, the advantages of knowledge, the danger of
the passions, and similar interesting themes. He was just about to tie
the bundle up again, when it occurred to him to read one of these
tiresome dissertations to the end, just to see what sort of style the
young scholar affected. And now a great surprise awaited him, for he
found that after the first five or six lines the theme suddenly broke
off and there followed something altogether different, which though also
written in the Latin tongue had nothing whatever to do, either with the
beauties of spring or the excellencies of agriculture, but was,
nevertheless, of the most interesting and engrossing character.

Now, indeed, he read every one of the exercises from beginning to end,
and, when he had done so, he clearly perceived that if old Demetrius
Lapussa had very particular reasons for ferreting out these things, Miss
Henrietta had still greater reason for concealing them.

After having neatly tied up the packet again, he bethought him what he
had better do next. Miss Henrietta had confided the secret to his
sa