“Meanwhile, there may be comfort for you in hearing through him of Jane. Will she not send us tidings, as she said?” No such intelligence came; and in M. Verblanc’s frequent letters was always contained the assurance that no tidings of the estimable lady, the sister of his son-in-law, had reached his agent or himself. Henry had been long settled down to his duties and enjoyments as a country clergyman, when he received a letter from Peek containing the following intelligence, which was immediately forwarded to Morgan. “I had been applied to several times,” Peek wrote, “about Jane Farrer, spinster, the surviving claimant of the tontine annuity last year, on whose behalf no claim has been made this year. You will see presently that government has had a lucky bargain of that annuity, which is more than can often be said of that sort of transaction. The whole thing has come to light; and Patience was in great distress about it, all yesterday. We have had a rare catch of smugglers; and one of them let out, when he began to be chop-fallen, that it was very odd he had escaped such a many risks, to be trapped at last. Among the rest, he told us of one surprising get off when he thought he was sent for to the bottom where all the rest went. After a windy day, which had blown their boat out of the river at a fine rate, till they were almost within sight of their smuggling vessel, their cockle-shell could not stand the gale. He swears that they should have done very well but for the heavy chests that they were carrying for a gentlewoman who wanted to be smuggled abroad. She was almost desperate when they heaved both chests overboard, though she had been quiet enough while the gale was rising. She went down quietly enough too, when the boat filled, and sunk from under them all, leaving such as could to save themselves on any thing they could find to float on; by which means he and one other only got to shore. All he remembers about the gentlewoman is that she wore a black cloak, and noticed nobody, more or less, but a siskin that she had with her in a cage. One of the last things she did,—and he remembers it by a joke that went round, of her caring about a brute creature’s life when her own was not worth a farthing,—the last thing she did was letting fly the bird, and she looked after it, to see how it fared in the wind, when the water was up to her own knees. From the oddness of this, and the black cloak, we feel convinced it must have been sister Jane, besides the date being the same. Patience fretted a good deal about it yesterday, as I mentioned. We suppose that we shall now see you in town about the affairs, and you know where you may always find a pipe and a bit of chat.” “Do not go, Henry,” said Marie. “Let Peek have all the wealth. Do not let us touch that which has poisoned the lives of three of your family.”