Paulina, wearied and dejected, and recoiling naturally from the indefinite prospects of danger before her, was not the least rejoiced at this change in the original plan, by which she benefited at any rate to the extent of a quiet shelter for one night more,--a blessing which the next day's adventures might deny her,--and still more by that postponement of impending evil which is so often welcome to the very firmest minds, when exhausted by toil and affliction. Having this certainty, however, of one night's continuance in her present abode, she requested to have the room made a little more comfortable by the exhilarating blaze of a fire. For this indulgence there were the principal requisites in a hearth and spacious chimney. And an aged crone, probably the sole female servant upon the premises, speedily presented herself with a plentiful supply of wood, and the two supporters, or _andirons_ (as they were formerly called), for raising the billets so as to allow the air to circulate from below. There was some difficulty at first in kindling the wood; and the old servant resorted once or twice, after some little apologetic muttering of doubts with herself, to a closet, containing, as Paulina could observe, a considerable body of papers. The fragments which she left remained strewed upon the ground; and Paulina, taking them up with a careless air, was suddenly transfixed with astonishment on observing that they were undoubtedly in a handwriting familiar to her eye--the handwriting of the most confidential amongst the imperial secretaries. Other recollections now rapidly associated themselves together, which led her hastily to open the closet door; and there, as she had already half expected, she saw the travelling mail stolen from her own carriage, its lock forced, and the remaining contents (for everything bearing a money value had probably vanished on its first disappearance) lying in confusion. Having made this discovery, she hastily closed the door of the closet, resolved to prosecute her investigations in the night-time; but at present, when she was liable to continual intrusions, to give no occasion for those suspicions, which, once aroused, might end in baffling her design.