rewarded for our integrity, and turn into a
deserving family. Shan't we, Mary?"

"Or the unknown will assure us that he
intended it as a delicate little attention to
Mary, and will beg her acceptance of the
token," said Harry.

"My dears," urged the curate, "we have
had almost enough of that joke; family wit
is all very well, but it becomes depressing
when the sun is allowed to go down upon it."

"Has it depressed you, old Polly?" said
her brother. "You are all in the downs this
evening."

"Well, I think I am," said Mary. "If
this money really belonged to that kind
man, I can't bear to think what a scrape
his good-nature must have got him into."

"His gross carelessness rather," said Mr.
Mackworth; "probably some banker's clerk.
No doubt he has lost his place for it. Serve
him right, I should say."

The next day was Sunday, and the ladies
of the family betook themselves to the school
for the space of time between breakfast and
church.

Harry and the little boys joined them at
church, and Mary soon saw that her eldest
brother was suffering under some unusual
excitement. The moment the sermon was
over, he was out of church like a shot, and
she found him waiting at the door with a
newspaper in his hand. He seized her arm,
and drew her off a little way, among the
tombstones, while he eagerly explained:

"Look here, Polly, it is such a queer go!
I was looking over the paper old Murch
lent us this morning, and I lit on this
advertisement. Look."

Mary read:

"Five hundred pounds reward.

"Left in a Hansom cab, at the door of
Grueby's Library, on the 21st ult.; a small
brown paper parcel fastened with twine and
with four seals in red wax, bearing the
initials 'V. L' in a monogram. Any one
bringing the same with the contents intact
to Messrs. Langley and Go's Bank, Lombard
Street, City, or to the same Bank,
High Street, Brigham, shall receive the
above reward."

Before Harry and Mary had exchanged
a word of comment, the curate was upon
them, astonished and scandalised at seeing
them apparently deep in the Times within
the churchyard precincts. Mary gave him
the paper, and pointed out the paragraph.

"That's a comfort," was his first exclamation:
"now I am saved the trouble and
expense of advertising. We must not lose a
moment in restoring the money. I am
doubtful whether it is not our duty to take
it to Nettlehurst. I know Mr. Langley is
there. It is not a very Sunday-like bit of
business, but I can't bear to keep such a
sum in our cottage with no proper lock-up
place for it."

"Oh! By all means, papa," cried Mary,
eagerly; "and might not I go with you? If
that poor clerk has got into trouble, I might
perhaps say something for him; at all events
I might explain how it all happened; might
I not?"

Mr. Mackworth decided that Mary's
presence would be desirable, and they hastened
home to eat a hurried dinner before setting
out.

Evening service at Farley was not till six
o'clock, so there was ample time for the
walk to Nettlehurst, as both Mary and her
father were quick walkers, and thought
nothing of the three miles out, and three back,
even in the dirt and gloom of a raw January
afternoon. Mary was well defended from
the weather, and enjoyed thoroughly the
rare treat of a tête-à-tête with papa. The
walk itself too was enjoyable. It lay through
country which would have been lovely in
summer and which was picturesque even
in the dead of winter; the first part
through flat green fields guarded by very
impracticable stiles, and then they emerged
into the road, which gradually mounted,
until plantations and well-kept fences on
each side of it showed that they were passing
through some gentleman's grounds.

"Here is Nettlehurst," said Mr. Mackworth
as, after following a low park wall
for some distance, they found themselves
close to tall iron gates, spick and span, and
fresh and neat, as was the picturesque lodge,
its trim garden, and the broad carriage
drive. A woman, as tidy as everything else,
in her Sunday garb, admitted them, and
they walked on through well-kept plantations
first, and then through a small park,
somewhat dreary now, with its tufts of
blackened heather and dead bracken. A
flower-garden was laid out close to the house,
which was a picturesque building, all gable
ends. The flower-beds were tilled with
branches of holly-evergreen, a device which
neither Mary nor her father had ever seen
before; and all along the south front of the
house was a glittering conservatory giving
a peep at gorgeous hues and graceful trailing
forms, a welcome contrast to the bleak
desolation of the ordinary out of door world.

"Very nice all this is," said the curate,
approvingly; "you should have seen this
place as I did in old Hathaway's time, when
I was taking Morton's duty. Everything
was going to wrack and ruin!"