A constable and proper assistance was sent to Mrs. Churchill’s. They stationed themselves in a back parlour which opened on a passage leading to the butler’s pantry, where the plate was kept. A little after midnight they heard the hall door open. Corkscrew and his accomplices went directly to the pantry; and there Mr. Spencer and the constable immediately secured them, as they were carrying off their booty. Mrs. Churchill and Pomfret had spent the night at the house of an acquaintance in the same street. “Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Pomfret, who had heard all the news in the morning, “the villains are all safe, thank God. I was afraid to go to the window this morning; but it was my luck to see them all go by to gaol. They looked so shocking! I am sure I never shall forget Felix’s look to my dying day! But poor Franklin! ma’am; that boy has the best heart in the world. I could not get him to give a second look at them as they passed. Poor fellow! I thought he would have dropped; and he was so modest, ma’am, when Mr. Spencer spoke to him, and told him he had done his duty.” “And did my brother tell him what reward I intend for him?” “No, ma’am, and I’m sure Franklin thinks no more of _reward_ than I do.” “I intend,” continued Mrs. Churchill, “to sell some of my old useless plate, and to lay it out in an annuity for Franklin’s life.” “La, ma’am!” exclaimed Mrs. Pomfret, with unfeigned joy, “I’m sure you are very good; and I’m very glad of it.” “And,” continued Mrs. Churchill, “here are some tickets for the play, which I shall beg you, Pomfret, to give him, and to take him with you.” “I am very much obliged to you, indeed, ma’am; and I’ll go with him with all my heart, and choose such plays as won’t do no prejudice to his morality. And, ma’am,” continued Mrs. Pomfret, “the night after the fire I left him my great Bible and my watch, in my will; for I never was more mistaken at the first in any boy in my born days; but he has won me by his own _deserts_, and I shall from this time forth love all the _Villaintropic_ folks for his sake.” SIMPLE SUSAN. CHAPTER I. Waked as her custom was, before the day, To do the observance due to sprightly May. DRYDEN. IN a retired hamlet on the borders of Wales, between Oswestry and Shrewsbury, it is still the custom to celebrate the 1st of May. The children of the village, who look forward to this rural festival with joyful eagerness, usually meet on the last day of April to make up their nosegays for the morning and to choose their queen. Their customary place of meeting is at a hawthorn, which stands in a little green nook, open on one side to a shady lane, and separated on the other side by a thick sweet-brier and hawthorn hedge from the garden of an attorney. [Picture: Simple Susan]