no.

She must do as their other visitors did,-put up with the bed over the way.

'But Martha love, poor Peggy used to be very kind to me when I was a boy. Many's the sixpence she has slipped into my pocket; and, poor old soul, she'll be frightened to death to go into a strange house, and sleep away from her friends. A strange whim, certainly, of poor Peggy, to travel so far from home; but as she has taken it into her head, why, Martha love, let us see if we can't make her comfortable.'

But Martha was obdurate.

'Very well, my love, then you must take it into your own hands, for I wont,' said Mr. Tracy.

Poor Miss Fryer made her appearance at the time she had fixed. A little shrivelled and wrinkled, shaky old lady, in an old fashioned, faded silk pelisse which had been laid up in lavender it would be hard to say how many years. She was sadly nervous at finding herself so many miles from home, among so many strange faces-even little Ned, as she persisted in calling Mr. Tracy, to the great annoyance of Mrs. Tracy, was so altered, she declared, that she shouldn't have known him again.

On the cause of her journey Miss Fryer was mysteriously silent; she had a little business to transact in the morning, or the next day, or the next day after that, she said, and perhaps she might get little Ned to help her in it; but she couldn't say more than that. And where should she put her box? It was not a big one, she said, for she didn't wish to cumber little Ned's house up too much; and might she (for all this passed in the first five minutes after the coach had dropped her down' at Mr. Tracy's door)-might she step into her bed-room to set herself to rights a little ?

"O yes, of course; but,'-and then-'little Ned' slipping out of the room-came the explanation, curt and straightforward, and blank, from Martha's lips; Miss Fryer was welcome to step into her (Martha's) room, to make any little changes of dress she might

require; but as there wasn't a spare bed-room in the house, Miss Fryer's box should be taken over the way, where Mr. Tracy had engaged a bed for her for a night or two-with an emphasis on the night or two,' as much as to say, ' There, now you know your doom.'

There was an astonishing composure in the little old maid's reception of this astounding announcement. Well, she was but a little body, and she had reckoned she might have been put in some closet or other, but it did not signify at all; only she wouldn't trouble Mrs. Tracy to send her box over the way at present, if she would be so kind as to give it house room for an hour or two. And, now she thought of it, she had a call to make in the town, and she would go while her pelisse was on, and that would save a world of trouble. There was no occasion for Mr.. Tracy to trouble himself to go with her. It was a good while, to be sure, since she was in Blank, but she could find her way; and nodding and smiling benignantly, and almost condescendingly on Mrs. Tracy, the little old lady tripped out at the door, and was gone before Martha could have counted twenty.

Mr. Tracy and Martha had not finished their wonderment at poor Peggy's erratic motions, when a fresh cause for wonderment sprang up. A knock at the door, a livery servant, and Mr. Hodges's compliments, and he had sent for Miss Fryer's little box. The lady was going to stay at Mr. Hodges'.

At Mr. Hodges !-Mr. Hodges!-Hodges! The aristocratic solicitor! There must be some mistake.

No, not half a one. There was poor Peggy, and there she meant to be; and thither her little box followed her, on the shoulders of a porter whom the livery servant brought with him, he being too grand, by three yards of gold lace to carry a box through Blank, even for his master.

The mystery did not last many days. There was an estate, and an intestate death, and there were title deeds, and there had been a search for the next heir or

heiress; and there was Miss Fryer, whom the persevering Mr. Hodges had hunted out in her obscurity; and there had been letters passing backwards and forwards, and there were letters of administration taken out, and oaths to be taken, and signatures to be written, and powers to be granted, and lawyers best know what besides. And Miss Fryer must come to Blank; and should Mr. Hodges send his carriage for her? and would she honour him by making his house her home while she should stay at Blank?

All this had passed and re-passed; but Miss Fryer remembered her 'little Ned,' and her old love for him, and thought that she would pay him a visit as poor cousin Peggy, and had made herself happy in thinking of the agreeable surprise she should create by appearing before him, in the end, a full blown gentlewoman,

'With a plentiful estate.'

But Miss Fryer didn't want perception, and had as much weakness, in her way, as Martha Tracy had in hers. And without deigning to call again at the house where she had received so cool a reception, and refusing even to see 'little Ned,' when he made a call at Mr. Hodges, she started homewards, in the attorney's carriage, as soon as the 'little business' was settled.

Nobody knows how Miss Fryer has made her will, or to whom the estate will descend: but we fear our friend Edward Tracy will have but a small slice of poor cousin Peggy's leavings.

They say he has fitted up his spare bed-room again : -but such a chance for a good legacy doesn't happen every day in the year; and we fear that Mr. Tracy has locked the stable door after the steed is stolen.'

P.S. The writer has a spare bed-room at the service of Miss Fryer, if she should ever come our way.

136

HOW THE LEGACY WENT.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.

HOW IT CAME.

ROBERT SYKES was at work one day in the harvest field, mowing wheat; his wife, with her gown tucked up, was binding sheaves, as fast as he brought down the corn; and their eldest girl was making bands ready for her mother, when a ragged urchin, one of the rather numerous family of the Sykeses, ran into the harvest field with a letter in his hand, which he gave to his father, in obedience to the injunctions he had received from the village postman, whose horn was, even then, sounding in the distance.

:

The letter was a formal and respectable looking letter; it had a red seal on it, and the direction was plain enough to any one who could read writing :"Mr. Robert Sykes, Labourer," of such-and-such a village, near such-and-such a town, in such-and-such a county.

'What o' this, Sam ?' asked Sykes, handling the letter cautiously, and turning it over and over in his hard brown hand.

'Dun-no, father; a letter, postman said—and I was to give it you, that's all,' replied the boy.

What's the use o' sending me a letter, anybody?' asked Robert Sykes, in perplexity, and looking round, in search, perhaps, of the anybody' who had committed so foolish an action. What's in it, Sam ?1 he added, looking suspiciously at poor little Sam.

'Dun-no, father; postman said as how you maught uppen it, and read what's writ,'

'Postman's a fool, and you another,' growled the man; what's the use of bringing a letter to a man as can't tell grit B from a bull's foot? What's the use on't?' he asked, with the air of an injured person.

'Dun-no, father,' said the boy again, snivelling, and keeping out of reach of his father's arm; for he did not know what turn affairs might sake.

'What's the use of fritting the boy that 'ere way ?' said Robert's wife. Give us hold o' the letter, and we'll find somebody to read it, by-'n-by. "Taint o' much count, I dare say;' and she took the mysterious paper out of her husband's hand. 'Tis about the back rent, I reckon, that's what 'tis, or summat else as bad.'

By this time Robert's fellow-harvesters had come up and formed a ring round the family party, and looked on, grinning at their perplexity.

'Why don't you read it, Bob? Read it, I tell ye,' said one.

'You read it, if you like: you shall have it for a pot of beer, if that's all,' replied Sykes, and thus turned the laugh against the joker.

'Tis a lawyer's letter, I should say,' said another, 'that's plain enough by the look on't. Here, hand it over, mother, and I'll spell it out for you,' he added, taking the letter from the woman; 'shall I mate ?' 'Just as you like.'

'Here goes, then,' continued the man, who was the only one in the field who, in former days, would have been entitled to 'the benefit of the clergy,' if he had chanced to get into an awkward fix with the game or other laws; and as he spoke, he broke open the seal.

Tom Barton was no hasty reader. He took time to digest word by word and sentence by sentence. Fortunately the letter was not a long one, or the patience of Mrs. Sykes might have been exhausted; for since the letter was come and opened, she said, she might as well know the worst.

Wait a bit, can't you, till I've got the sense on't,' said the young man :-' My eye! though,' he ex