o out of the way for a time after the escape
of the prisoner.

"Wishing, my dear Miss Walladmor, in secret that success to your
enterprize on this occasion--which, on all other occasions, I shall be
proud to wish you openly,--I remain, with the greatest regard,

"Your faithful and devoted servant,

"5 o'clock. "CHARLES DAVENANT."

This note relieved Miss Walladmor from much of her anxiety: for Thomas
Godber was not only deeply attached to the family, having been a
servant about the castle from his boyish days; but of late he had been
bound in a new tie of gratitude to Miss Walladmor by the sanction which
she had given to his future marriage with Grace, to whom Tom had long
been a zealous suitor. Grace was not less rejoiced on hearing of the
arrangement which Sir Charles had made; and answered for Tom's services
with the air of one who claimed more unlimited obedience from him, in
the character of lover, than his colonel or his sovereign could exact
of him in those of soldier and subject.

It was necessary, however, in so perilous a matter, that Miss Walladmor
should see and converse with Tom: throwing a large shawl therefore
about her person, and trusting herself to the guidance of Grace, who
led her by passages and staircases which she had never trod before,
Miss Walladmor descended to a sort of cloisters or piazza which opened
by arches upon one side of the great court of the castle. Here Grace
introduced her into a small parlour, usually occupied by one of the
upper female servants, who was likely to be absent at this time of the
evening for some hours; and, after she had seen her mistress seated and
secured from intrusion, she ran off to summon Tom. With him she was
already disposed to be somewhat displeased that he was not immediately
to be found; and, after she _had_ found him, lectured him all the way
for his temerity in presuming to be absent when Miss Walladmor
condescended to want him. Tom's intellectual faculties were not of the
most brilliant order: whether Tom had any latent and yet undiscovered
profundity which qualified him for philosophic speculations, we cannot
say: for the honor of the male sex, we heartily hope that he had some
bright endowment in his brain which was deeply concealed from all men
to balance his prodigious inferiority to Grace in all which was
revealed. Indeed Tom had no vanity on this subject: nobody could have a
lower opinion of his own wi