So saying, Miss Anastasia marched with an exultant and jubilant step, following Mrs Atheling up the narrow stairs. She was considerably shaken out of her usual composure--swells of great triumph, suddenly calmed by the motion of a moved heart, passed over the spirit of this brave old gentlewoman like sun and wind; and her self-appointed charge of the rights of her father’s children, who might have been her own children so far as age was concerned, had a very singular effect upon her. Mrs Atheling did not linger a minute longer than she could help with her distinguished guest. She was proud of Miss Anastasia, but far prouder of Charlie,--Charlie, who had been a boy a little while ago, but who had come back a man. “Come here and sit down, mother,” said Charlie; “now we’re by ourselves, if you will not tell the girls, I’ll tell you everything. First, there’s the marriage. That she belonged to the family I wrote of--the family Remori--I got at after a long time. She was an only daughter, and had no one to look after her. I have a certificate of the marriage, and a witness coming who was present--old Doctor Serrano--one of your patriots who is always in mischief; besides that, what do you think is my evidence for the marriage?” “Indeed, Charlie, I could not guess,” cried Mrs Atheling. “There’s a kind of tomb near the town, a thing as like the mausoleum at Winterbourne as possible, and quite as ugly. There is this good in ugliness,” said Charlie, “that one remarks it, especially in Italy. I thought no one but an Englishman could have put up such an affair as that, and I could not make out one way or another who it belonged to, or what it was. The priests are very strong out there. They would not let a heretic lie in consecrated ground, and no one cared to go near this grave, if it was a grave. They wouldn’t allow even that. You know what the Winterbourne tomb is--a great open canopied affair, with that vast flat stone below. There was a flat stone in the other one too, not half so big, and it looked to me as if it would lift easily enough. So what do you think I did? I made friends with some wild fellows about, and got hold of one young Englishman, and as soon as it was dark we got picks and tools and went off to the grave.” “Oh, Charlie!” Mrs Atheling turned very pale. “After a lot of work we got it open,” said Charlie, going on with great zest and animation. “Then the young fellow and I got down into the vault--a regular vault, where there had been a lamp suspended. _It_, I suppose, had gone out many a year ago; and there we found upon the two coffin-lids--well, it’s very pitiful, mother, it is indeed--but we wanted it for evidence--on one of the coffins was this inscription:--‘Giulietta Rivers, Lady Winterbourne, _née_ Remori, died January 1822, aged twenty years.’ If it had been a diamond mine it would not have given so much pleasure to me.” “Pleasure! oh Charlie!” cried Mrs Atheling faintly.