MY TREASURE RECOVERED—COUSIN DOROTHY'S CONSISTENCY.

DESPITE a tiring day and a sleepless night, I was hardly conscious of weariness when I went to the office. I was too much excited to think about myself.

By the earliest train came Cartwright and his son. They had been tricked into leaving the platform the night before, probably by a confederate of Black Mike's, and were greatly concerned at what had happened.

Betsy carried out our directions, and found Mike making himself perfectly comfortable in his old quarters, though intensely disgusted at the failure of the previous night, which he attributed to "the screeching of that girl," and avowed his intention of "paying her out yet."

I took advantage of the first opportunity to call on Cousin Dorothy, though it was not easy to get to the house on account of the many excited inquirers who stopped me on the way. Mr. Burford and Rose were there, the former delighted at my presence under that roof, the latter ready with an extended hand and a mock reverence, as she inquired after the hero of the night.

Nelly, dear Nelly, came towards me with her hands closed, but stretched in my direction.

"Which will you have, Jack?" she demanded, in the old childish fashion, and waited for me to choose.

"This," said I, taking the left.

She opened it, and on the palm lay my old sixpence, with the words, "Work, Wait, Win." as plain as ever on its surface.

"Where did you find it, Nelly?" I said, delighted to receive my treasure a second time from her hand.

"Inside the strong-room, close to the door of the safe at which the men were working when 'we' surprised them." She emphasised the "we," as if proud to have been one of the three; and, indeed, she had shown marvellous courage and presence of mind through a trying time.

I told her so, and she blushed charmingly at my praises. Then I said, "This furnishes a most important link, and leaves no doubt what ever that one of the men who attempted to rob the safes last night, is identical with the thief who carried off this along with my gold chain and money."

Mr. Burford had to be informed of all that had come to my knowledge respecting Black Mike's doings and present whereabouts. I had little time to spend at the Hall. Indeed, I had found it very difficult to leave the station in order to go there, but I told all I knew, and left Mr. Burford to make what arrangements he thought best for preventing the escape of Black Mike from the cottage.

I only ventured to suggest that the place should not be approached in open daylight, as I felt assured the man would deem his present retreat beyond suspicion, and, relying on Betsy's silence, remain there quietly until the first excitement was over. He would argue that Oakhill was the last place in which he would be sought for.

I was on the platform that afternoon, and the 4.15 train was just moving out, when a man rushed forward and made a leap towards a carriage. He clutched the door-handle, but missed the step and slipped down in a sitting posture, with his lower limbs between the train and the platform.

He clung in desperation to the carriage, and was dragged along for some distance before the train could be brought to a standstill. By keeping hold, he saved himself from instant death, for had he loosed it, he would have been drawn bodily underneath it and crushed horribly. As it was, the suffering must have been terrible, for his lower limbs were much injured, and those who saw him, felt convinced that he would never be able to walk again.

"I knew my luck was gone when I lost the charm," he muttered, and then I felt sure that the speaker was indeed Black Mike.

Contrary to my suggestion and Mr. Burford's advice, the police had approached the cottage by daylight and attempted to capture him. They saw him dash through the side window and make for the station. When they reached it, they found that the hospital was the only place to which the helpless prisoner could be conveyed, and thither he was carried.

Mike was never tried for this last offence by an earthly judge. He died two days after the accident—died as he had lived, without expressing any regret except for his ill success at Lint Hall, and the being "caught for nothing." He attached great importance to the loss of that innocent little coin of mine, and had, it seems, regarded it with superstitious reverence, deeming that the possession of it meant luck, the loss ruin.

Mike's confederate was never captured.

Sarah forgot her indignation on account of the rough treatment to which she had been subjected by Mike, and shed many tears when she heard of his terrible end. She even retrimmed with black that best bonnet in which she had probably intended to figure as a bride, and wore the same as mourning on two consecutive Sundays.

Mike had made the girl believe that he intended to make her his wife, and the scrap of paper found by me proved to be part of a letter to him, in which she accepted his proposal, and promised to meet him at an appointed time on the road "tords the stashun."

Sarah's grief proved short-lived. Black did not suit her complexion, so she soon replaced the gayer bonnet-trimming, and was heard to own that hers had been a lucky escape, seeing it would have been a let-down for a decent girl to marry a man that had been in prison, and was going the way to get in again.

Under good influences and through Miss Flint's forbearance, Sarah is fast becoming a wiser and better girl, and is still in Cousin Dorothy's service.

I am anticipating, however, and must go back a little. Shall I ever forget the Sunday which followed the attempted robbery? I went to church as usual, and at the door I met Miss Flint.

"Come with me, Cousin Jack," she said; "come and sit where you sat as a lad."

She placed her hand on my arm, and thus we walked up the aisle together, thereby creating a sensation hitherto unknown amongst the worshippers in Oakhill Church.

I held the door open for her, and when she had taken what was once my mother's place, I took that which had been my own, close beside her.

I am afraid my lips did not follow the service very closely that day, but my heart was full of thankfulness, and He who reads all hearts knew what was in mine.

Nelly and Rose sat with their father, but after service, I walked to Lint Hall with the two girls, their father and Miss Flint following, for we were to make one little party at dinner.

"Jack, you and I have been creating a false impression this morning," said my kinswoman. "To-morrow, if not sooner, everybody in the place will be saying that I have adopted you, and that you are coming to live at Lint Hall. Mind you contradict it, for it is not true."

"I will," was my answer, and I had to keep the promise often in the days that followed.

As we all sat together that evening, my cousin told us her own love-story. I need not repeat it.

"You know now what attracted me to Herbert Kenningham," she added. "At first, I cared for the lad because he brought before me the living image of one that was gone. He deserves to be loved for his own sake, and you and he will be friends, Cousin Jack, when you meet." The prophecy proved a true one.

Then turning to Rose and Nelly, she said, "Children, you, like myself, will be enriched whilst you are young, through neither work nor effort of your own. Do not let wealth deprive you of a better gift, as mine did. Some girls have admirers who look past them to their money-bags. Mine saw in these a wall which parted him from me."

"'I' shall not let money come between Herbert and me," said Rose, looking up at Miss Flint with a bright smile.

The latter nodded approval, and patted the girl's blushing cheek.

At that instant I thought of the needless torment I had suffered through my jealous doubts and fears, and of my folly in imagining that no one could look at Nelly with other eyes than I did, or past her at Rose.

Nelly told me that her sister and young Kenningham were engaged, with the full consent of her parents; that they had intended to wait until Herbert's position was more assured, but now their marriage would take place soon after Rose came of age.

It was hard to keep the secret of my own good fortune from Nelly, but I succeeded. And when I asked her to be my wife, she was still in ignorance of it. I hardly needed to tell her the story of my almost life-long love for her. Nelly was nobler, larger-souled than I, and had not only been true to me, but she had never doubted my truth for a moment.

"I always knew you loved me first and best, dear Jack," she said; "and if you had never told me, I should have guessed why, and waited on till I was a grey old woman, or until death, if it had come first."

I drew my darling to my heart, and her head rested on my shoulder for a little while, for we were too happy to utter a word, though I am sure we were just brimming over with glad thankfulness.

"Jack, you will have to take my money now or leave me." And she looked up with a little, triumphant smile.

"True, my darling. And the money is such a trifle in comparison that the thought causes me no trouble, especially as I am equally rich;" and I told her my secret then.

I am not sure that she was glad of it in one sense, but, as she subsequently remarked—

"I was willing to be your wife, dear Jack, when I thought you were poor; and you to take me when you knew I should have quite a lot of money. There was no room for false pride on either side. How can there be, when love and faith are in the ascendant?"

I did not ask for my Nelly until even Mrs. Burford had given her consent. Whether she was moved by my deference to her maternal rights, or influenced by her husband, children, and Cousin Dorothy in combination, I cannot tell. All I know is, that there was no dissentient voice, and that we are very, very happy, though our marriage will not take place for a year or two. Most likely the interval will be spent in study and travel, to fit me for a different sphere of work from that I have hitherto filled. I trust the possession of ample means will not make me self-indulgent. If I did not hope to live usefully in the future, I should wish myself in my old post at Oakhill Station.

Whether in England or elsewhere, Nelly and I will not be long parted, for in travelling Miss Flint will be one of the party, and will act as deputy-mother to my darling.

My coming of age was actually celebrated at Lint Hall, and on that occasion Cousin Dorothy wore a dress selected by Nelly, according to promise, and looked, what she is, a very dignified and charming old lady. Moreover, from that date she laid aside her eccentricities of dress and manner once and for all, reserving, I am glad to say, all her amusing characteristics.

I had a disappointment, but it did not last long. Nelly was most anxious to buy back the Hall and a portion of the old estates, but on naming the subject to Mr. Burford, he told me they were already sold to Cousin Dorothy.

It is an open secret that my whimsical kinswoman has chosen this mode of keeping her vow never to leave me a penny. She has made a will disposing of such personal property as she still retains, how, and in whose favour, I know not. But as the real estate is not even mentioned, it will come to me in due course as next-of-kin. Long may it be before I own it.

Mr. Burford pulled down the old cottage after Black Mike's death, and removed every trace of it. I am building a new one on the old site, exactly in accordance with the ideas of comfort and convenience expressed by Jabez and Betsy, and there George will find a home with his parents. So far he has gone on steadily and industriously, and for the sake of the old folk and the service rendered on the night of the burglary at the Hall, Oakhill people seem inclined to forget all that was so much to be regretted in his past life.

I use the old armorial bearings of my family now, but I carefully preserve Nelly's sixpence. And if I had to choose a motto, it should still be—

"Work, Wait, Win."

THE END.

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