where they had been left the evening before. There was no place where they could bleach more favourably, and Victorine had received no orders to remove them. It was not long before the conviction was forced upon everybody that the linen was stolen. The most valuable part of the clothing of the family was gone. Nearly eighty of the best caps belonging to the four women of the household were carried off, and so many other useful things that the maidens might do nothing but spin, knit, and sew, from this time till Christmas, and yet be obliged to have three or four extra washes. It was a dreadful misfortune. Louise leaned her head against the cow she was milking when the tidings were brought to her. Let Charles be as fortunate as he might, her wedding might be considered as deferred for an indefinite period. Anna hoped against hope that some happy explanation would arise. It seemed impossible that any one should be so wicked as to take, without payment, what did not belong to him. Father and son and Victorine were off in different directions to look for traces of thieves in the fields and highways. Not a cap was to be seen dropped on the grass, nor any shirt frolicking by itself on any bush. Victorine turned back panic-struck, only too well convinced of what she now thought she had suspected all along,—that the guest of the last night had arrived from a far more distant place than England, and that he needed no ship to bring him over the sea. She trembled to think what sort of feet might have been enclosed in her young master’s shoes, and what might have been the effects of his eyes, if he had not happily chosen to keep them shut. Aaron did not know that he could do better than pursue his way to St. Heliers, where it was possible that he might meet with either Stephen or the thief, if they should, after all, not happen to be the same person. So he harnessed a strong little horse of his father’s to the cart, drove to his rope-walk, wished that Malet would not be so late in the mornings, but would be at his business in time to help people with advice when they were in a hurry, and drove off. He had not gone far when his sister’s voice hailed him. She was running after him with a list of messages from his mother about articles that he was to purchase in the market at St. Heliers, and with a request that if he should be able to learn anything about the lost property, he would take particular care to recover Louise’s share first, as poor Louise was in sadder distress than anybody else. “You will go to Gorey,” she suggested. “Some of the English may think there is no harm in taking our caps, and will give you them back again.” “Ask Charles to go there. It will be as much as I can do to make this harness hold out, if I go as straight as an arrow and back again. I had better have kept the last coil of cord I sold to young François; this is as rotten as if the tow had never been twisted.”