s which Miss Stanbury almost expected reached her ears.

"The Colonel's been at the Clock House, ma'am," said Martha.

Now, it was quite understood in the Close by this time that "the
Colonel" meant Colonel Osborne.

"No!"

"I'm told he has though, ma'am, for sure and certain."

"Who says so?"

"Giles Hickbody was down at Lessboro', and see'd him hisself,--a
portly, middle-aged man,--not one of your young scampish-like
lovers."

"That's the man."

"Oh, yes. He went over to Nuncombe Putney, as sure as
anything;--hired Mrs. Clegg's chaise and pair, and asked for Mrs.
Trevelyan's house as open as anything. When Giles asked in the yard,
they told him as how that was the married lady's young man."

"I'd like to be at his tail,--so I would,--with a mop-handle," said
Miss Stanbury, whose hatred for those sins by which the comfort and
respectability of the world are destroyed, was not only sincere, but
intense. "Well; and what then?"

"He came back and slept at Mrs. Clegg's that night,--at least, that
was what he said he should do."

Miss Stanbury, however, was not so precipitate or uncharitable as
to act strongly upon information such as this. Before she even said
a word to Dorothy, she made further inquiry. She made very minute
inquiry, writing even to her very old and intimate friend Mrs.
Ellison, of Lessboro',--writing to that lady a most cautious and
guarded letter. At last it became a fact proved to her mind that
Colonel Osborne had been at the Clock House, had been received there,
and had remained there for hours,--had been allowed access to Mrs.
Trevelyan, and had slept the night at the inn at Lessboro'. The thing
was so terrible to Miss Stanbury's mind, that even false hair, Dr.
Colenso, and penny newspapers did not account for it.

"I shall begin to believe that the Evil One has been allowed to come
among us in person because of our sins," she said to Martha;--and she
meant it.

In the meantime, Mrs. Trevelyan, as may be remembered, had hired Mrs.
Crocket's open carriage, and the three young women, Mrs. Trevelyan,
Nora, and Priscilla, made a little excursion to Princetown, somewhat
after the fashion of a picnic. At Princetown, in the middle of
Dartmoor, about nine miles from Nuncombe Putney, is the prison
establishment at which are kept convicts undergoing penal servitude.
It is regarded by all the country round with great interest, chiefly
because the prisoners now and again escape, and then there c