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certain of anything yet. And now let us go in again. Sylvester may suspect that there is something which we are anxious to conceal from him, and I wish him to go there free from all suspicion."

They then returned to the parlour, in which Sylvester was reading, and, as they entered, the reverend gentleman said, "Well, my dear boy, now what time will you be ready?"

"Oh, at what time you please!" replied Sylvester. "How far have we to go?"

"About four miles; it can't be more than that."

"Then I suppose we ought to start about half-past three? Shall I drive you over in our machine, or will you go in yours?"

"Oh, we may as well go in mine."

"Very well. Then, in the meantime, aunt, you and I will go for a drive somewhere: shall we?"

"I should like it, my dear, much."

The reverend gentleman then left the cottage, and Sylvester went to look after the chaise, while Aunt Eleanor—to whom Borton Hall had become an object of the most intense interest—decided on getting Sylvester to drive round Borton, in order that she might just look at the Hall.

Accordingly, on getting into the chaise, she intimated to him the road she wished to go—of course without explaining her object—and they went that road and passed the Hall, of which she could get but the slightest glimpse, so perfectly was it surrounded by trees.

"How should you like to live there?" inquired Sylvester, perceiving the eyes of his aunt fixed upon it.

"I think not at all, my love;—should you?"

"I might if I wished to be buried alive. What place is that?" he inquired of a man who was passing at the time."

"Borton Hall, sir," replied the man.

"Who lives there!"

"Don't know, sir. Nobody knows. Nobody never did know."

"Nobody, I suppose then particularly wants to know. Of course it's inhabited?"

"Sir?"

"Some one lives there, of course."

"Oh, yes, sir, two or three lives there, if they call that livin'. They're rollin' in riches, too, if that's any good to 'em."

"Is the master of the house then a miser?"

"A miser, sir! no, sir: he's one of the most liberalest men as is—only he won't let nobody know him. He don't care what he gives away nor what he pays for what he has."

"Is he never to be seen?"

"Oh, yes, sir—sometimes. I've seen him often, and he looks, for all the world, sir, as if he'd been committing a million o' murders."

"Well, he's an extraordinary fellow, certainly," said Sylvester, who threw the man sixpence and then drove on.

That this colloquy, short as it was, deeply interested Aunt Eleanor, a fact which may well be conceived. She knew the cause of Howard's