I returned to our second stage with Gaillet, and found the table laid, but not a scrap of food to be seen. The waiter was trotting up the stairs with a heavily-loaded tray, on which was an enormous plate of sole _au gratin_. Gaillet remarked that it looked as if the people in the top hut had not only captured our place, but our breakfast as well. He begged the waiter to hurry our order, and then asked me what I thought might be going on up there behind the curtains. It was very near us, and perhaps for this reason the young ladies refrained from audible conversation. They only whispered among themselves and laughed at intervals, but Gaillet thought he surprised one or two attempts to peep around the curtain at us. I was ravenously hungry, and when the waiter next went past up to the top story I seized a yard of bread from his tray. Looking down at Bayly, who was focusing below, I cried out: "Lancelot, if you are hungry, get a photograph of the only morsel of food I have been able to secure before I devour it!" And our last illustration bears witness that he did so. This detailed view of a thatched, rustic hut perched upon a big limb finished his work. Aunt Sarah's Brooch. [Illustration] BY ARTHUR MORRISON I am afraid to face my Aunt Sarah. Though how I am to get out of it I don't quite see. At any rate, I will never again undertake the work of a private detective; though that would have been a more useful resolve a fortnight ago. The mischief is done now. The main bitterness lies in the reflection that it is all Aunt Sarah's fault. Such a muddlesome old----but, there, losing my temper won't mend it. A few weeks ago I was Clement Simpson, with very considerable expectations from my Aunt Sarah and no particular troubles on my mind, and I was engaged to my cousin, Honoria Prescott. Now I am still Clement Simpson (although sometimes I almost doubt even that), but my expectations from my Aunt Sarah are of the most uncomfortable, and my troubles overwhelm me. As for Honoria Prescott----but read and learn it all.