Poor James could scarcely believe his eyes. He almost doubted at first whether he was not at length really growing insane, and whether the circumstances which he fancied had so recently occurred were not mental delusions, consequent 011 his burning desire to be at liberty. Could it indeed be possible that the glorious hour was so near at hand?--that his daughter was alive?--that he had seen her,--a beautiful young woman, like what his own wife was when first he took her to his home;--that she was aiding him once more to tread the earth _free?_--that he might again have a home,--be revenged on the man who so cruelly wronged him,--and, once more reinstated in his house at Charnwood, enjoy that greatest of all earthly blessings, a father's pride in the beauty, the virtue, and the heroism of his child? These thoughts were almost more than he could bear, and he wept aloud, as he mentally offered up a prayer of gratitude to Heaven for all its goodness to him. Afterwards, in order to prevent the possibility of any discovery, he tore up the letter into the most minute fragments with his teeth, and buried them in a hole which he made with his foot, near the trunk of the old yew-tree. Nevertheless he was not safe. There were enemies without, of whom he knew nothing, and treachery was at work to undermine Colin's project. It was stated some few pages back that Fanny and Colin were sauntering in the fields on the old farm at Whinmoor, when the former related her discoveries at Nabbfield, and the latter explained to her the plan he had formed for assisting her father to escape. Now, at the time when he was earnestly engaged in doing this, Miss Sowersoft was standing behind an adjacent hedge, having stealthily crept there with her shoes off, in order to gratify a certain irrepressible curiosity to know what object Fanny could have in coming so far to see Colin, old George having announced her arrival. Although Colin frequently, and very fortunately, spoke in too low a voice for Miss Sowersoft to catch the meaning of the projected attempt, and also mentioned so few of the details of his plan, that she could scarcely make head or tail of it; yet so much reached her attentive ear as sufficed to form in her mind the ground-work of some very horrible suspicions of Colin's honesty. The great fertility of her genius in matters of this description soon enabled her to make out, from the broken discourse she had heard, that Colin was no better than a thief, and that he actually meditated committing a burglary upon the premises of Dr. Rowel some night in the course of the ensuing week; while Fanny was doing neither more nor less than aiding and abetting him in his nefarious attempt. But as her information was not of a sufficiently positive kind to justify her in acquainting the constable, and getting him immediately apprehended, she came to the conclusion that Dr. Rowel ought at least to be put upon his guard, in order that he