“Well then, if you do, sir,” she replied, “you know the saycrit.”

“So there is a secret, then?”

“So you say, Masther Hycy.”

“Nanny,” he proceeded, “it occurs to me now that you never underwent a formal examination about this robbery that took place in our house.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” she replied; “I mostly happened to be out.”

“Well, but do you know anything about it?”

“Not a thing—­no more than yourself, Mr. Hycy.”

Her interrogator turned upon her a hard scrutinizing glance, in which it was easy to see that she read a spirit of strong and dissatisfied suspicion.  She was evidently conscious of this; for as Hycy stood gazing upon her, she reddened, and betrayed unequivocal symptons of confusion.

“Because, Nanny,” he proceeded, “if you knew anything about it, and didn’t mention it at once to the family, you would be considered as one of the robbers.”

“An’ wouldn’t I be nearly as bad if I didn’t?” she replied; “surely the first thing I’d do would be to tell.”

“It’s very strange,” observed Hycy, “that such a robbery could be committed in a house where there are so many servants, without any clue whatsoever to a discovery.”

“Well, I don’t agree with you there, Mr. Hycy—­if what your father and mother an’ all o’ them say is true—­that it wasn’t often the hall-door was bolted at night; and that they can’t say whether it was fastened on that night or not.  Sure if it wasn’t, there was nothing to prevent any one from comin’ in.”

“Very true, Nanny,” he replied, “very true; and we have paid severely for our negligence.”

This closed the conversation, but Hycy felt that, proceed from whatever source it might, it was impossible to dismiss certain vague suspicions as connected with the mendicant’s daughter.  He determined, however, to watch her narrowly; and somehow he could not divest himself of the impression that she saw through his design.  This incident occurred a few days after the robbery.

Jemmy Burke, though in many respects a man of easy and indolent character, was nevertheless a person who, as is familiarly! said, “always keep an eye to the main chance.”  He was by no means over-tidy either in his dress or farming; but it mattered little in what light you contemplated him, you were always certain to find him a man not affected by trifles, nor rigidly systematic in anything; but at the same time you could not help observing that he was a man of strong points, whose life was marked by a course of high prosperity, that seemed to flow in upon him, as it were, by some peculiar run of good fortune.  This luck, however, was little less than the natural result of shrewd mother-wit, happily applied to the:  ordinary transactions of life, and assuming the appearance of good fortune rather than of sound judgment, in consequence of the simplicity of character under which it acted.  Ever since the night of the robbery, he had devoted himself more to the pipe than he had ever been known to do before; he spoke little, too; but what he did say was:  ironical, though not by any means without a tinge of quiet but caustic humor.