"It is pleasant to see you, girls, I can tell you. And it is double pleasant to have such a hearty welcome to anybody. Your Father and Sophy are quite well, and everybody else. You are to go home?--ay: but when, we'll see by-and-by. But now I want my questions answered, if you please. I shall be glad to know what has come to you both? I sent off two throddy, rosy-cheeked maids to London, that did a bit of credit to Cumberland air and country milk, and here are two poor, thin, limp, white creatures, that look as if they had lost all the sunshine out of them. What have you been doing to yourselves?--or what has somebody else been doing to you? Which is it?" "Cary must speak for herself," said Hatty, "Hatty must speak for herself," said I. Hatty laughed. "It is somebody else, with Hatty," I went on, "and I don't quite know how it is with me, Aunt Kezia. I have been feeling for some weeks past as if I had the world on my shoulders." "Your shoulders are not strong enough for that, child," replied my Aunt Kezia. "There is but one shoulder which can carry the world. `The government shall be upon His shoulder.' You may well look poor if you have been at that work. Where are Flora and Miss Keith?--and what has become of their brothers, both?" "Annas and Flora have just come back to London," said Hatty. "But Angus is in dreadful trouble, Aunt; and I do not know where Colonel Keith is-- with the Prince, I suppose." "No, Hatty," said I. "Aunt Kezia, Angus is safe, but an exile in France; and Colonel Keith lies in Newgate Prison, waiting for death." "What do you know about it?" asked Hatty, in an astonished tone. My Aunt Kezia looked from one of us to the other. "You cannot both be right," said she. "I hope you are mistaken, Cary." "I have no chance to be so," I answered; and I heard my voice tremble. "Colonel Keith bought Angus's freedom with his own life. At least, there is every reason to fear that result, and none to hope." "Then that man who escaped was Angus?" asked Hatty. I bowed my head. I felt inclined to burst out crying if I spoke. "But who told you? and how come you to be so sure it is true?" "I was the girl who carried the basket into the prison." I just managed to say so much without breaking down, though that tiresome lump in my throat kept teasing me. "You!" cried Hatty, in more tones than the word has letters. "Cary, you must be dreaming! When could you have done it?" "In the evening, on one of Grandmamma's Tuesdays, and I was back before any one missed me, except you." "Who went with you?--who was in the plot? Do tell us, Cary!" "Yes, I suppose you may know now," I said, for I could now speak more calmly. "Ephraim took me to the place where I put on the disguise, and forward to the prison. Then Colonel Keith and I carried in the basket, and Angus brought it out. Ephraim came to us after we left the prison, and brought me back here." "Ephraim Hebblethwaite helped _you_ to do _that_?"