were deeply stirred, and he fell
into that fashion now:

"I never knew real happiness
Till I became a Methodess;
So come, my love, and jine with me,
For here's a parson 'll marry we.
Come for'ad and jine,
Come for'ad and jine,
This night come for'ad and jine.
A-A-A-A-A-men!"

During the banquet and the subsequent proceedings the virtuous Russell had
been silent and distrait. Though restored to the arms of the best of
wives, still he was not happy. There was yet something wanting. And what
was that? Need I say that it was the lost package with the precious bonds?
Ah no, for every one will surely divine the feelings and thoughts of this
sorrowful man.

And he in his abstraction had been trying to think what could be done; for
the bonds were lost to him: they were not in the place where he had
concealed them. What that place really was he now knew only too well. Had
that fiend Rita found them? Perhaps so--yet perhaps not. On the whole, as
a last resort, he concluded that it would be best to appeal to Don Carlos.
His face indicated goodness, and his whole treatment of the party invited
confidence; there surely he might meet with sympathy, and if the package
had been found by any of the Carlists it might be restored.

And so, as the uproar subsided, Russell arose, and walking toward Don
Carlos, suddenly, and to the amazement and amusement of all present, flung
himself on his knees, crying,

"A boon! a boon, my liege!"

These preposterous words had lingered in his memory from some absurd
reading of his boyhood.

Don Carlos smiled. "What does he say?" he asked.

Harry came forward to act as interpreter.

Russell now told all. Harry knew in part the fortunes of the bonds after
they had left Russell's hands; but then they had again been lost, so that
he could not tell what had finally become of them. Of his own part in
finding them, and then concealing them again, he thought best to say
nothing.

Ashby, however, had something to say which was very much to the purpose.
It seems that Dolores had found the bonds, had kept them, and had finally
handed them over to Ashby for safe-keeping. He at once concluded that they
were Katie's, and was waiting for a convenient opportunity to restore
them. The opportunity had now come. This was his simple story, but as it
was told to Don Carlos in Spanish, Russell did not understand one word.

"Where are they now?" asked Don Ca