think, though we've lived together thirty years, he'd turn me into the road."

"What need he ever know!" said Jessie. "I'm sure I'd never tell him."

"Oh, Jessie, but you're a thoughtless girl!" "I can be steady enough when I like,” said Jessie.

"If you'd go down on your knees, and swear never to tell who it was that told you!"

"So I will," said Jessie, suiting the action to the word, and flopping down upon both knees.

"You never will, so help you God!"

"I never will, so help me God!" said Jessie. Whereupon, Mrs. Graham rose from her seat, and taking up her bunch of keys that lay on the table beside her, she bade Jessie follow her to her own bedchamber. When there, having locked the door and shut the window, she opened a trunk that appeared filled with miscellaneous articles, and thrusting her hand to the bottom at one particular corner, she drew up a crumpled letter. It was addressed to Mr. George Graham, and the postmark testified that it had come from London.

"Is it from William Bell?" said Jessie.

"It is," said Hannah; "as sure as you're Jessie Matthieson."

"And what does he say? Does he tell where he is ?"

"Not just where he is; but there's a way of finding out," said Hannah. "You see it's not wrote with his own hand; I suppose he was afraid they'd know his writing at the post-office; but when my sister sent up the letter, Geordie happened to be out, and as soon as I saw it, my mind misgave me who it came from, for there's nobody in Lunnun to write to him, and so I opened it."

"And doesn't Mr. Graham know about it?" "Not he! I never told him a word. He was always too much for William Bell, and, for anything I know, he might have told Lucy of it, and just set her wild again about him, after I've been trying all I can to get him out of her head."

"And what does he say ?" inquired Jessie. "Has it got his own name to it?"

"No, it's got no name.

Read it; you see

it's mostly to inquire about Leonard. He

wants to know if Leonard's at home, or if we know where he is."

"What should he want to know so particular about Leonard for, I wonder."

"You know Leonard saw him in the wood, and I suppose he's afraid he'll be a witness against him. But you see he wants Geordie to write to him, and the letter's to be directed to X. Y. Z., to be left at the post-office till called for; so as he must go to fetch it, if anybody watched the post-office they might lay hold of him."

"That's true," said Jessie; "only it must be somebody that knows him."

"Well, you know him," said Mrs. Graham. "Yes, I do," said Jessie, thoughtfully, for she had an uneasy sort of feeling about what she was doing; and although the influence that urged her was strong enough to make her betray William, she would have preferred doing it through the intervention of another, to being the immediate actor in the business herself.

"This letter came a week ago," said Hannah; "and he'll be looking for an answer by this time."

"But would Mr. Graham write one if you give him the letter?"

"I've no doubt he would, but I'm not going

to give it him," said Hannah; "I durstn't do it now; but I'll write myself; and you must go back to Lunnun and watch till he comes for it."

All these preliminaries being arranged, and the day appointed on which the letter was to be put into the post, Jessie took her departure, but not without another long and private conference with Hannah, wherein the latter used her utmost efforts to enforce the necessity of caution and secrecy on that giddy head. She also endeavoured, though vainly in both instances, to persuade Jessie and herself that they were doing no more than their duty, in delivering up a criminal to justice, and thus constraining Lucy to do what was so much for her interest and advantage, instead of sacrificing herself to an idle and hopeless attachment; and she concluded by reminding Jessie, that, as by communicating this grand secret she was paving her way to fortune, she, that is Jessie, could in common gratitude do no less. than reward Leonard's faithful and long suffering love, by giving him her hand as soon as the affair they were about to embark in was brought to a prosperous conclusion.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Aspatia. "In this place work a quick-sand,
And over it a shallow, smiling water."

It was not many days after these secret conferences with Mrs. Graham, that, in accordance with their scheme, Jessie returned to town and communicated the very satisfactory result of her expedition to the person at whose instigation she had undertaken it. "And the letter 'll be in London the day after to-morrow, I suppose," said she.

"It's not a bad plan," said Mr. Jacob Lines; "still, if we're not very sharp, we may miss him. We must be there to-morrow, before