‘Oh, that’s all very fine,’ says Betty, ‘trying to get out of it like that; but let me tell you that I think——’ However, what Betty may think of people who put boiled eggs under sitting hens is for ever lost to posterity, because at this moment Jane, with red eyes and a depressed demeanour, comes hurrying up to them across the small lawn, a covered basket in her hand. CHAPTER XIII. ‘O, coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!’ ‘For you, miss,’ says she, handing the basket to Susan. Susan turns crimson. That basket! She knows it well. ‘For me?’ stammers she. ‘Yes, miss.’ ‘Who’—nervously—‘who brought it?’ ‘A boy, miss.’ For an instant Susan’s heart feels relief, but for an instant only. ‘Whose boy?’ falters she. ‘I don’t know, miss. He came an’ wint in a flash like. I hope, miss, as there isn’t anythin’ desthructive in it,’ says Jane, whose misfortunes of the morning have raised in her a pessimistic spirit. ‘They do say thim moonlighters are goin’ about agin.’ ‘Do you mean to say the—the messenger said nothing?’ ‘No, miss, except that it was for you. That was all, miss; and I’m not deaf, though I wish I was before I heard all that was said to me this mornin’ about an ould cup that——’ Here she lifts her apron and sniffs vigorously behind it. ‘Oh, it can’t be for me,’ says Susan, with decision; ‘take it away, Jane. There has been some mistake, of course. Take it away at once. Do you hear? The—the boy will probably call for it again in a little time.’ ‘I don’t think he will, miss; he looked like a runaway,’ says Jane. ‘Good heavens! how interesting,’ says Mr. Fitzgerald, breaking at last into the charmed silence that has held them all since the advent of Jane and the mysterious basket. ‘Who can this unknown admirer be? No doubt it contains roses’—staring at the basket—‘or heliotropes—heliotrope in the language of flowers means devotion! Susan, are you above a peep?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ says Susan hastily. ‘I am not,’ says Betty, springing forward and pulling open the cover. ‘Oh, I say, cherries! and such beauties, too! Susan, you are in luck!’ ‘And so are we,’ says Fitzgerald, putting a hand lightly over her shoulder and drawing up a bunch of the pretty fruit between his fingers. ‘Oh, I think we ought not to eat them—I do indeed,’ says Susan, in a small agony. There can be no doubt now about the fact that the thief, repentant and struck to the very soul by her eloquent pleadings, had sought to redeem himself in her eyes by sending the stolen cherries to her. Whether with a view of giving her the pleasure of eating them, or with the higher desire of proving to her that he hadn’t devoured them, must, she feels and hopes (because to meet him again would be very unpleasant to her), for ever remain unknown.