Project Gutenberg's Under Padlock and Seal, by Charles Harold Avery

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Title: Under Padlock and Seal

Author: Charles Harold Avery

Release Date: February 8, 2010 [EBook #31231]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER PADLOCK AND SEAL ***

Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: The children leant forward and peered down into this
wonderful box. _Page 113._]

UNDER PADLOCK AND SEAL

BY HAROLD AVERY

Thomas Nelson and Sons
London, Edinburgh, Dublin
and New York

_CONTENTS._

_I. Downstairs in the Dark_, 9
_II. The Lost Carving-Knife_, 19
_III. Uncle Roger's Box_, 30
_IV. The Box Opened_, 41
_V. A Naval Disaster_, 51
_VI. More Mystery_, 61
_VII. Sad News_, 71
_VIII. Elsie has a Fright_, 82
_IX. A Fresh Discovery_, 93
_X. Elsie's Confession_, 103
_XI. Uncle Roger's Legacy_, 112
_XII. The Riddle Solved_, 122

UNDER PADLOCK AND SEAL.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I.

DOWNSTAIRS IN THE DARK.

Elsie pushed away the bed-clothes which were covering her ear, and
listened; then she sat up in bed, and listened again.

[Illustration]

There was no doubt that it was an actual sound, and not mere
imagination. How long it had been going on, or when it first began to
mingle in a confused manner with her dreams, she could not say; but now
she heard it plainly enough, and recognized what it was--the peculiar,
grating hiss of a grindstone, punctuated every now and then with a
subdued little squeak made by the treadle.

Who on earth should want to be grinding anything at that time of night?

The Pines was a rambling old house; the girls always slept with their
window open; and just below was an outbuilding, part of which was used
as a tool-house, in which stood the grindstone; and thus the sound had
reached Elsie at a moment when perhaps her slumber was not as deep as