the little
creature, had ended in the overthrow of the basket, and the usual
outburst of crying had followed as a matter of course.

In this state of things the remedy was soon applied. The woman took the
bottle away from the eldest child, and gave it a "box on the ear."
The younger one she set on its legs again, and she put the two "in the
corner" to keep them quiet. This done, she swept up such fragments of
the torn paper in the basket as had fallen on the floor; threw them back
again into the basket, along with the gum-bottle; fetched the bucket,
and emptied the basket into it; and then proceeded to the fourth and
last room in the corridor, where she finished her work for that day.

Leaving the house, with the children after her, she took the filled
bucket to the dust-heap, and emptied it in a hollow place among the
rubbish, about half-way up the mound. Then she took the children home;
and there was an end of it for the day.

Such was the result of the appeal made to the woman's memory of domestic
events at Gleninch.

The conclusion at which Mr. Playmore arrived, from the facts submitted
to him, was that the chances were now decidedly in favor of the recovery
of the letter. Thrown in, nearly midway between the contents of the
housemaid's bucket, the torn morsels would be protected above as well as
below, when they were emptied on the dust-heap.

Succeeding weeks and months would add to that protection, by adding to
the accumulated refuse. In the neglected condition of the grounds,
the dust-heap had not been disturbed in search of manure. There it had
stood, untouched, from the time when the family left Gleninch to
the present day. And there, hidden deep somewhere in the mound, the
fragments of the letter must be.

Such were the lawyer's conclusions. He had written immediately to
communicate them to Benjamin. And, thereupon, what had Benjamin done?

After having tried his powers of reconstruction on his own
correspondence, the prospect of experimenting on the mysterious letter
itself had proved to be a temptation too powerful for the old man to
resist. "I almost fancy, my dear, this business of yours has bewitched
me," he wrote. "You see I have the misfortune to be an idle man. I have
time to spare and money to spare. And the end of it is that I am here
at Gleninch, engaged on my own sole responsibility (with good Mr.
Playmore's permission) in searching the dust-heap!"

Benjamin's description of his first vi