She spoke so low that she did not receive that reproving look of Mamma which was wont to check such exclamations. Marian, though she had a will of her own, and was never like to fall into a mere shadow and reflection of her lover, as his poor little sister did, had unconsciously imbibed Louis’s sentiments. She did not know what it was to _hate_, this innocent girl. Had she seen Lord Winterbourne thrown from his horse, or overturned out of his carriage, these ferocious sentiments would have melted in an instant into help and pity; but in the abstract view of the matter, Marian pronounced with emotion the great man’s sentence, “Everybody hates Lord Winterbourne.” “That is what the old lady said,” exclaimed Charlie; “she asked me who I thought would believe him against her? But that’s not the question. I don’t want to pit one man against another. My father’s worth twenty of Lord Winterbourne! But that’s no matter. The law cares nothing at all for his principles. What title has he got, and what title have you?--that’s what the law’s got to say. Now, I’ll either have something to put in against him or I’ll not plead. It’s no use taking a step in the matter without proof.” “And won’t that do, Charlie?” asked Mrs Atheling, looking wistfully at the piece of parchment, signed and sealed, which was in Charlie’s hands. “That! why, it’s two hundred and fifty years old!” said Charlie. “I don’t see what it refers to yet, but it’s very clear it can’t be to Miss Bridget. No, mother, that won’t do.” “Then, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very sorry to think of it; but, after all, we have not been very long here, and we might have laid out more money, and formed more attachments to the place, if we had gone on much longer; and I think I shall be very glad to get back to Bellevue. Marian, my love, don’t cry; this need not make any difference with _anything_; but I think it is far better just to make up our minds to it, and give up the Old Wood Lodge.” “Mother! do you think I mean that?” cried Charlie; “we must find the papers, that’s what we must do. My father’s as good an Englishman as the first lord in the kingdom; I’d not give in to the king unless he was in the right.” “And not even then, unless you could not help it,” said Agnes, laughing; “but I am not half done yet; there is still a great quantity of letters--and I should not be at all surprised if this romantic old cabinet, like an old bureau in a novel, had a secret drawer.” Animated by this idea, Marian ran to the antique little piece of furniture, pressing every projection with her pretty fingers, and examining into every creak. But there was no secret drawer--a fact which became all the more apparent when a drawer _was_ discovered, which once had closed with a spring. The spring was broken, and the once-secret place was open, desolate, and empty. Miss Bridget, good old lady, had no secrets, or at least she had not made any provision for them here.