“It is _him_,” said Patty, in full possession of her h’s, and with a gravity that became the importance of the occasion. Miss Hewitt did not say a word. She rose from her chair, and, proceeding to the window, pulled down the thick linen blind. She then placed a chair against the door. Then she took from the recess near the fireplace an old workbox, full to all appearance, when she opened it with a key which she took out of her purse, with thread and needles of various kinds. Underneath this, when she had taken the shelf completely out, appeared something wrapt in a handkerchief half-hemmed, with a threaded needle stuck in it--as if it had been a piece of work put aside--which proved to be an old pocketbook. She held this in her hand for a moment only, gave Patty a look, full of suspicion, scrutiny, yet subdued enthusiasm; then she opened it and took out carefully three crisp and crackling notes, selecting them one by one from different bundles. Then with great deliberation she put notes, pocketbook, the covering shelf, of the workbox, and the box itself back into the place where it had stood before. “Mind, now you’ve seen it, I’ll put it all into another place,” Miss Hewitt said; “so you may tell whoever you like, they won’t find it there.” “Why should I tell?” said Patty; “it’s more for my interest you should keep it safe.” “You think you’ll get it all when I die,” said the elder woman, sitting down opposite to her niece with the notes in her hand. “I think, as I hope, you’ll never die, Aunt Patience! but always be here to comfort and help a body when they’re in trouble, like me.” “Do you call yourself in trouble? I call you as lucky as ever girl was. I’d have given my eyes for the chance when I was like you; but his father was too knowing a one, and never gave it to me. Here! you asked for thirty, and I’ve give you fifty. Don’t you go and put off and shilly-shally, but strike while the iron’s hot. And there’s a little over to go honeymooning upon. Of course he’s got no money--the Softy: but I know ’im; he’s no more mad than you or me.” She ended with a long, low laugh of exultation and satisfaction which made even Patty, excited and carried away by the tremendous step in her life thus decided upon, feel the blood chilled in her veins. “You think there’s no truth, then, in what Lady Piercey said: that they could take everything from him, even to his name?” It was the hesitation of this chill and horror which brought such a question to Patty’s lips. Miss Hewitt laughed again. “The Manor estate is all entailed,” she said, “and the rest they’ll never get Sir Giles to will away--never! All the more if there’s a chance of an heir, who ought to have all his wits about him, Patty, from one side of the house. Get along with you, girl! You’re the luckiest girl as ever I knew!”