uch as to say, You may
believe this young person if you like, my dear boy, but there is
somebody who knows better, and can make allowance for a young lady's
charming self-depreciation. Mrs. Carruthers, grateful for the safety of
her husband and her father, and Mrs. Carmichael, for that of her brother
and Mr. Errol, were prepared to be hospitable to a degree. The minister
had another opportunity of praising the toddy which the latter lady
brewed, and Mr. Perrowne said: "It isn't half bad, you know, but I
down't know what Miss Crimmage's Band of Howpe would think of it, if she
knew the two temperance champions were imbibing at three o'clock in the
morning." The minister remarked that he didn't care for all the
Crimmages in the world, nor the Crummages either, whatever he meant by
that, for there was no such name in the neighbourhood. "Basil," said
Miss Halbert, "you had better take care. I shall not allow you any
toddy, remember, but shall subscribe for the Montreal _Weekly Witness_".
Mr. Perrowne put a little out of the decanter into his tumbler, with a
practised air very unlike that of a Band of Hope patron, saying:
"Drowned the miller, Fanny! Must take time by the forelock, if you are
going to carry out your threats. But I think I'll drop you, and ask Mrs.
Carmichael to have compassion on me. She wouldn't deprive a poor man of
his toddy, would you now, Mrs. Carmichael?"

"Mrs. Carmichael," said Mr. Errol, answering for that lady, "would hae
mair sense," which shut the parson effectually out of conversation in
that quarter.

Miss Carmichael listened to the conversation, and beheld the minister
renewing his youth. She heard Mr. Bangs entertain her uncle with
stories about a certain Charley Varley, and Mr. Terry say to Mrs Du
Plessis, "Whin I was in Sout Ameriky wid the cornel, God save him." She
saw her friend Fanny exciting the lighter vein in the affianced
Perrowne, and knew that Cecile was upstairs, the light of the dominie's
eyes. There was a blank in the company, so she retired to the room in
which she had found the burglar, and looked at the knapsacks there. She
knew his; would it be wrong to look inside? She would not touch Mr.
Wilkinson's for wealth untold. If he had not wanted his knapsack opened,
he should not have left it behind him. But it was open; not a strap was
buckled over it. The strap press was there, and a little prayer-book,
and a pocket volume of Browning, some cartridges and tobacco, and an
empty