“At the present prices, it is ten thousand pounds if _Manylaws_ wins,” replied the gold-digger, rubbing his hands; “and if _Manylaws_ does not win--well, I shall not, I hope, be an importunate creditor. I do not say: 'Do not thank me,' lad, or I like you to smile like that. You are very, very welcome. But here we part; you to your home and friends, and I--well, I am used to be alone. I shall not see a friend's face again till I see yours. Good-bye, dear lad, good-bye.” With a hearty hand-shake and more thanks, Master Walter strode gaily away through the still slumbering village, reclimbed the avenue gate, and let himself noiselessly in at the front-door. As he passed on tiptoe along a gallery, on one side of which lay his sister's apartment, and on the other that of Miss Rose Aynton's, a door opened, and an anxious voice whispered: “What news, Walter?” “Good news,” replied he in the same cautious tone, and glided on to his own room. CHAPTER XIII. AT SIR ROBERT'S GRAVE. |IT had been observed, as I have already said, that my Lady had not left the Abbey grounds for these many weeks; but there had been one exception to that course of conduct. She had never omitted to visit, as usual, her late husband's grave, and to lay upon it a posy of spring-flowers, gathered by her own hands; but she did this now in the evening, instead of the daytime, as heretofore. It was not, however, likely that any intruder should be found there at any hour. Whoever of the household saw her walking in the direction of the little church--only a stone's-throw from the servants' offices--took great care to avoid her, or to appear, if they needs must meet her, unconscious of her errand; and while she was there, no domestic used the little zigzag path among the grass-grown graves that formed the short-cut to the village. The country folk were forbidden at all times to approach the Abbey by that way, so the sacred spot was almost as private as though it had been an appendage of the Abbey itself, as it had been in the old times. Mirk lay quite out of the high-road, so that no stranger “stretching his legs,” while the coach changed horses, ever strolled into its God's-acre to spend a profitless five minutes amid its solemn records; nor, indeed, was there anything in the graveground, whatever might have been in the church, to attract such persons, in the way of monument or effigy. Yet the humble graves were all well kept; not broken or dinted in, as one too often sees them in such places; nor did the head-stones lean this way and that, as though they strove to wrench up the very mounds they were set to mark; nor were the long rank grasses and the nettles permitted to overgrow the spot, and hide it from the sun. Upon every slab, however, save one, time was doing its work, covering with moss and lichen the gray surface, and filling up the letters on the stones---just as in the hearts of the survivors it was healing the sense of loss, and effacing the memory of