g--my good name, perhaps even life itself, in seeking
him. I expected to have to prove my good intent, so I brought with me
this letter which no one save myself has ever seen, nor any one other
than you shall ever see. Read it, Betty. It is one Master Hamilton sent
to me from France."

Betty hesitated, but as Frances insisted, she read the letter and
returned it, saying:--

"You are his sweetheart?"

"Yes, yes, Betty, in all that is best and most terrible in the meaning of
the word."

Betty sat thinking for a moment, then went to the window, saying, "If you
will look out the window across the courtyard, you will see a flight of
stone steps leading to the cellar."

"Yes, yes, I see," returned Frances.

"If you go down the steps, you will find a door to which I shall give you
the key. Enter and you will be in an empty room, the walls of which are
hung with worn tapestries taken from the inn. On one side of the room you
will see a tapestried panel bearing the image of St. George and the
dragon. Behind the panel is a concealed door, seemingly a part of the
wall, but if you will allow the tapestry to hang and will press the eye
of the dragon, the door will open and you may find--your St. George."

Frances caught Betty in her arms, crying, "Let me go to him at once, at
once!"

Betty and Frances went downstairs, and after waiting a minute or two,
Betty said, "Now there is no one in the courtyard, and you may cross
unseen."

Frances hastened across the courtyard and down the cellar steps. On
reaching the outer door of which Betty had spoken, she halted in fear.
But she dared not retreat, so inserting the key, she entered.

In the dim light of the room the images of faded knights, angels, saints,
and dragons seemed to stand like a small army of ghosts ready to deny her
passage. But soon she discovered the figure of St. George, pressed the
eye of the dragon, lifted the tapestry, and entered the room of a
printing shop.

While Frances had been standing in hesitation before the figure of the
saint, she had heard with some alarm a rumbling noise in the room she was
about to enter. The rumbling is destined, in my opinion, to go down the
line of the ages, an instrument of untold good to mankind, for it was the
rumbling of a printing-press.

Standing at the press, lifting and lowering it by means of a foot
lever, and feeding it with broad strips of paper, stood a man in his
shirt-sleeves. At an inclined desk, a type-cas