kes
great skill and patience and watchfulness. But it is being
accomplished by slow and sure degrees. Ah, Kate! what news thinkest
thou that I have for thee? The time has not yet come when the world
may know all; but I trow that thou mayest know, for thou hast ever
been with us in the secret of the quest."

Kate's face flushed and paled; her heart beat fast with hope and
wonder. She well knew what difference to her future would be made
by the restoration to the house of Trevlyn of that lost treasure.
She could scarce frame the words she longed to speak, but her eyes
asked the question for her; and Petronella, putting her lips close
to her cousin's ear, whispered the wondrous news that the lost
treasure was found.

"Found--really found!" and Kate gave a great gasp. "Nay, but,
Petronella, tell me how."

Petronella laid a warning hand upon Kate's lips.

"Nay, cousin, but thou must call me Ellen here. And we must wait
till the household be at rest, and we share the same bed, ere I
dare to pour into thine ears all the tale. And thou must promise to
breathe no word of it, bad nor good, till the moment has come for
the world to know. It will not be long now, I trow; but we are
pledged, and were it not that I know well thou art stanch and true,
I dared not have shared the joyful secret with thee."

"It is safe with me," cried Kate; "I will never betray it. O Ellen,
how I long to hear the whole! But since that may not be now, tell
me more of these great aunts of ours. What treatment am I to look
for beneath their roof? Am I to be received as kinswoman or as
prisoner? for marry I know not myself."

Petronella's face kindled into smiles, those bright happy smiles
that gave it a charm never seen in past days. She bent an arch
glance upon her cousin, and then made reply.

"The Lady Humbert is a fine stately dame, before whom my heart
quailed mightily when first I stood before her. Her voice is sharp;
her eyes look you through and through; her frown sets you quaking,
and makes you wish the earth would swallow you up. But for all
that, when once you get to know her, you find that a warm heart
beats beneath her stiff bodice, and that though she will speak
sharply to you before your face, she will do you many a kind act of
which you know little or nothing. Mistress Dowsabel is younger,
smaller, less fearsome to the eye; indeed she is timorous and often
full of fears herself. She too is kind, though I truly think that
Lady Hum