"My word, no, lad; not I. Take half a dozen copies, and welcome, if they can be of any use to you or other people. That's not much to ask for."

I thanked my simple host, and determined to write to a stationer at Hull for some tracing-paper by the first post next morning. There was some happiness, at least, in having found this unlooked-for end to my researches. I had a good excuse for remaining longer near Charlotte Halliday.

"It's only for my poor Mary's sake I set any value on that old volume," the farmer said, presently, in a meditative tone. "You see the names there are the names of her relations, not mine; and this place and all in it was hers. Dorothy and I are only interlopers, as you may say, at the best, though I brought my fortune to the old farm, and Dorothy brought her fortune, and between us we've made Newhall a much better place than it was in old James Halliday's time. But there's something sad in the thought that none of those that were born on the land have left chick or child to inherit it." Uncle Joseph fell for a while into a pensive reverie, and I thought of that other inheritance, well-nigh fifty times the value of Newhall farm, which is now waiting for a claimant. And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire—could it be indeed she whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of Crown lawyers?

The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr. Mercer's memory of his first wife with unwonted freshness.