“Cuthbert is yet in the forest,” answered Petronella, sinking her voice to the merest whisper, as if afraid that even the walls would have ears.  “His task is not yet finished.  It is one that takes great skill and patience and watchfulness.  But it is being accomplished by slow and sure degrees.  Ah, Kate! what news thinkest thou that I have for thee?  The time has not yet come when the world may know all; but I trow that thou mayest know, for thou hast ever been with us in the secret of the quest.”

Kate’s face flushed and paled; her heart beat fast with hope and wonder.  She well knew what difference to her future would be made by the restoration to the house of Trevlyn of that lost treasure.  She could scarce frame the words she longed to speak, but her eyes asked the question for her; and Petronella, putting her lips close to her cousin’s ear, whispered the wondrous news that the lost treasure was found.

“Found—­really found!” and Kate gave a great gasp.  “Nay, but, Petronella, tell me how.”

Petronella laid a warning hand upon Kate’s lips.

“Nay, cousin, but thou must call me Ellen here.  And we must wait till the household be at rest, and we share the same bed, ere I dare to pour into thine ears all the tale.  And thou must promise to breathe no word of it, bad nor good, till the moment has come for the world to know.  It will not be long now, I trow; but we are pledged, and were it not that I know well thou art stanch and true, I dared not have shared the joyful secret with thee.”

“It is safe with me,” cried Kate; “I will never betray it.  O Ellen, how I long to hear the whole!  But since that may not be now, tell me more of these great aunts of ours.  What treatment am I to look for beneath their roof?  Am I to be received as kinswoman or as prisoner? for marry I know not myself.”

Petronella’s face kindled into smiles, those bright happy smiles that gave it a charm never seen in past days.  She bent an arch glance upon her cousin, and then made reply.

“The Lady Humbert is a fine stately dame, before whom my heart quailed mightily when first I stood before her.  Her voice is sharp; her eyes look you through and through; her frown sets you quaking, and makes you wish the earth would swallow you up.  But for all that, when once you get to know her, you find that a warm heart beats beneath her stiff bodice, and that though she will speak sharply to you before your face, she will do you many a kind act of which you know little or nothing.  Mistress Dowsabel is younger, smaller, less fearsome to the eye; indeed she is timorous and often full of fears herself.  She too is kind, though I truly think that Lady Humbert has the larger heart.  They love each other well, and are willing to befriend all who have claims of kindred.  For the rest, they live much secluded from the world, and think that the times are sadly changed for the worse since the days when they were young.”