"Fain was I, ye may guess, at that word.

"My aunt packed up my things for me, and the three pounds that was due
to me, to bring home, and Squire Crowl himself came down to Applewale
that day, a handsome man, about thirty years ald. It was the second
time I sid him. But this was the first time he spoke to me.

"My aunt talked wi' him in the housekeeper's room, and I don't know
what they said. I was a bit feared on the squire, he bein' a great
gentleman down in Lexhoe, and I darn't go near till I was called. And
says he, smilin':

"'What's a' this ye a sen, child? it mun be a dream, for ye know
there's na sic a thing as a bo or a freet in a' the world. But
whatever it was, ma little maid, sit ye down and tell all about it
from first to last.'

"Well, so soon as I made an end, he thought a bit, and says he to my
aunt:

"'I mind the place well. In old Sir Olivur's time lame Wyndel told me
there was a door in that recess, to the left, where the lassie dreamed
she saw my grandmother open it. He was past eighty when he told me
that, and I but a boy. It's twenty year sen. The plate and jewels used
to be kept there, long ago, before the iron closet was made in the
arras chamber, and he told me the key had a brass handle, and this ye
say was found in the bottom o' the kist where she kept her old fans.
Now, would not it be a queer thing if we found some spoons or diamonds
forgot there? Ye mun come up wi' us, lassie, and point to the very