“Perhaps so. But it will depend on whether you will be good, and try to please me.” “Oh! I will do whatever you say.” “Well, that sounds well. Then I’ll tell you what my plans are, and where it is that you are to go.” So saying, he drew from his pocket a copy of the “New York Tribune,” and read aloud the following advertisement:— “WANTED, by a family a few miles distant from the city, a young girl, of from twelve to fourteen, to serve as nursery-maid and companion for two young children. Address “P. H. GREGORY.” “There,” said the reader, laying down his paper, “is a situation which will just suit you. You like children; and pretty much all you will have to do will be to attend to them. Then Mr. Gregory lives in a beautiful place. He is a rich man, and can afford it. Would you like to go?” “Above all things,” said Helen, eagerly (for to her the prospect of a release from the dismal place in which she lived was most pleasing). “And you wouldn’t miss me, your affectionate uncle?” said the man, with a peculiar expression. The child’s eyes fell. She blamed herself frequently for not holding in higher regard the only relative of whom she knew any thing: yet so ungenial was his nature, and so harsh and forbidding was he nearly always, that it would have been singular if he had inspired affection in any one. So it happened, that, in the joy of the anticipated change, she had not for a moment thought of the separation which it must occasion between herself and her uncle. “Of course,” she said, timidly, “I shall be sorry to leave you”—— “You needn’t say any thing more, child,” was the reply. “I don’t profess any particular affection for you, and I don’t believe you feel any for me; and you may be sure I shouldn’t have proposed this removal to you if I had not some object of my own in it. Would you like to know what that is?” “Yes,” she said, hesitatingly. “Well, I will tell you; because it is necessary that you should fully understand, before you go, on what conditions I allow you to do so. But, if you dare to impart to a breathing soul a hint of what I tell you, I will seek you out, and—well, no matter,” he continued, seeing that his threat made her turn pale. “You must know that this Mr. Gregory, with whom I am going to place you, once cheated me out of a large sum of money, which I cannot hope to regain, except by stratagem. Now, I want you to get in there, and I will then give you instructions how to manage. They keep a large amount of valuable plate in the lower part of the house. It will be comparatively easy for you, when you are once there, to render me essential service by opening the front door to me, so that I may be able to secure it without detection; and then”—— “But,” said the girl, shrinking in dismay from this proposition, “would not that be robbery?”