not show her face until the family was summoned for prayers.  The colonel came down in his usual urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had spent a good night.  The captain could be heard descending the staircase, and telling somebody that he was becalmed again with a spell of foul weather.  The somebody was the Squire, who insisted that thieves had been through his wardrobe, and then eagerly asked for news from the encampment.  All were shocked beyond measure when they heard of the terrible tragedy.  “I wished the man no good,” said the Squire, with a regretful expression on his manly face, “but, if he had been ten times the deep dyed villain he was, I couldn’t have dreamt of such an awful fate for him.”  The captain remarked that in the midst of life we are in death, that the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that where a man makes his bed he must lie down, all of which he considered to be good Scripture and appropriate to the occasion.  “Yoah fohce met with no moah casualties, I hope, Captain Bangs?  I do not see our fishing friend, Mr. Bigglethorpe; is he safe, suh?” These questions led to an account of the fisherman’s heroic attempt to release the self-imprisoned occupants of the underground passage, of his wounds, and of the subsequent exploits of the lawyer and the detective.  Coristine escaped upstairs to put himself in shape for breakfast, and to visit his wounded friend.  He found that gentleman progressing very favourably, and perfectly satisfied with his accommodation.

After morning prayers, conducted by the Squire with unusual solemnity, the lawyer asked Miss Carmichael if she alone would not shake hands with him, making no allusion to any previous encounter.  She complied, with a blush, and seemed pleased to infer that the Captain, above all, had not heard of her mistake.  The two had no time for explanations, however, as, at the moment, Messrs. Errol and Perrowne, who had been told there was a fire out towards the Lake Settlement, came in to learn about it, and were compelled to sit down and add something substantial to their early cup of coffee.  They reported the rain almost over, and the fire, so far as they could judge from the distance, the next thing to extinguished.  Once more the trays were in requisition for the invalids, and again the colonel and Mr. Perrowne acted as aids to Miss Du Plessis and Miss Halbert.  Just as soon as he could draw her attention away from the minister, Coristine remarked to Miss Carmichael:  “I have the worst luck of any man; I never get sick or wounded or any other trouble that needs nursing.”  The young lady said in a peremptory manner, “Show me your hands;” and the lawyer had to exhibit two not very presentable paws.  She turned them palms up, and shuddered at the scorched, blistered and scratched appearance of them.  “Where are Mr. Errol’s gloves I put on you?”

“In the pocket of my wet coat in the kitchen.”