'They are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way.'

And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.

'They _are_--yes--I had better do it another way--another way; yes--and
she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose.'

Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly
lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second or two,
'_Remember_ this key.'

It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.

'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'

'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. 'In
the daytime it is always here,' at which word he dropped it into his pocket
again. 'You see?--and at night under my pillow--you hear me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You won't forget this cabinet--oak--next the door--on your left--you won't
forget?'

'No, sir.'

'Pity she's a girl, and so young--ay, a girl, and so young--no
sense--giddy. You say, you'll _remember_?'

'Yes, sir.'

'It behoves you.'

He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden
resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a
great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause,
he said slowly and sternly--'You will tell nobody what I have said, under
pain of my displeasure.'

'Oh! no, sir!'

'Good child!'

'_Except_,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
be absent, and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman, in spectacles
and a black wig, who spent three days here last month--should come and
enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'

'Yes, sir.'

So he kissed me on the forehead, and said--

'Let us return.'

Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge on
a great organ, accompanying our flitting.

CHAPTER II

_UNCLE SILAS_

When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father his
slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the
uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but,
whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that night.

After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat down
in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and
looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before speaking;
and said he--

'This won't do--you must have a governess.'

In cases of this kind I me