On the evening of the tenth day after his father's funeral, young Mr. Bridgman sat up till a late hour examining various papers and accounts connected with his inheritance, and after retiring to bed, the exciting nature of his recent occupation hindered him from sleeping. While thus lying awake, his quick ear caught a sound as of some one breaking into the house through one of the lower casements. He rose cautiously, went out on the landing, and soon satisfied himself that his suspicion was a correct one. The object of the burglars was, he surmised, the plate in the house of which there was an unusually large quantity, both his father and grandfather having expended much money in that article of luxury. Andrew Bridgman was any thing but a timid person--indeed, considering that six men altogether slept in the house, there was but little cause for fear--and he softly returned to his bedroom, unlocked a mahogany case, took out, loaded and primed, two pistols, and next roused the gardener and groom, whom he bade noiselessly follow him. The burglars--three in number, as it proved--had already reached and opened the plate-closet. One of them was standing within it, and the others just without. "Hallo! rascals," shouted Andrew Bridgman, from the top of a flight of stairs, "what are you doing there?" The startled and terrified thieves glanced hurriedly round, and the two outermost fled instantly along the passage pursued by the two servants, one of whom had armed himself with a sharp-pointed kitchen knife. The other was not so fortunate. He had not regained the threshold of the closet when Andrew Bridgman fired. The bullet crashed through the wretched man's brain, and he fell forward, stone-dead, upon his face. The two others escaped--one of them after a severe struggle with the knife-armed groom. It was sometime before the uproar in the now thoroughly-alarmed household had subsided; but at length the screaming females were pacified, and those who had got up, persuaded to go to bed again. The corpse of the slain burglar was removed to an out-house, and Andrew Bridgman returned to his bedroom. Presently there was a tap at the door. It was Sarah Hollins. "I am come to tell you something," said the now aged woman, with a significant look. "The person you have shot is the Richard Green you have so often heard of." The young man, Hollins afterward said, seemed much startled by this news, and his countenance flushed and paled in quick succession. "Are you quite sure this is true?" he at last said. "Quite; though he's so altered that, except, Missus, I don't know any body else in the house that is likely to recognize him. Shall I tell her?" "No, no, not on any account. It would only recall unpleasant events, and that quite uselessly. Be sure not to mention your suspicion--your belief, to a soul." "Suspicion! belief!" echoed the woman. "It is a certainty. But, of course, as you wish it, I shall hold my tongue."