"Yes; I heard yesterday from our old friend Dr Prosser that he is wanting to find just such a young woman as Lydia Philips to fill a place which is now vacant, and the appointment to which is in his hands. I will write to him about her at once, if Lydia is willing to go. Perhaps you would be good enough to call at her house as you go by, and ask her to step up and speak to me.--By the way, Thomas, have you heard anything more about the bag since poor Taylor made his confession to you? I have been so busy lately that I have quite forgotten to ask you." "Nothing, sir, but Lydia's story; and that, as you see, merely confirms poor Ned's account. We're fast now: the bag's been in London half a year now, or thereabouts, if it hasn't been destroyed long ago; and, if it's still in existence somewhere or other, we've nothing whatever to show us where. I've not liked to trouble you any more about it, but I've left no stone unturned. I got a friend of mine, the guard of one of the trains, to inquire at the left-luggage office at Saint Pancras; and I put an advertisement for a week together into the London papers, offering five pounds reward to any one as'd bring the bag just as it was when it was lost; but it were all of no use, and I didn't expect as it would be, as it were taken up to London so long ago. It would have turned up months since if it had got into honest hands, and they had found our address in the bag. But I thought it best to try everything I could think of. And now me and Jane's satisfied to leave it to the Lord to find it for us in his own way." "Yes," replied the vicar, "that is your truly wise and happy course; and now you can patiently wait.--But stay; it just occurs to me, now I have been mentioning Dr Prosser, that he must have been travelling by the very train on to which the bag was dropped. It was the night of 23rd December last, was it not?" "Yes, sir, that was the night." "And it was dropped on to the express train from the north to London?" "It was, sir; but what then?" "Why, don't you remember what the doctor said as we were walking with him to the station the morning when he left us? Don't you remember his saying that his luggage was put on the top of the carriage he was in, and that he was angry with the porter for his carelessness in not covering it properly?" "Yes, sir; I think I remember it now, but other things have put it out of my head." "Well, Thomas, it seems to me not at all impossible that the bag was dropped on to this carriage; and you know that the train did not stop till it reached London." "Well, sir?" "Might not the bag have been reckoned by the porter at London as part of the doctor's luggage, if it was just on the top of it, and have been carried off by him?" "Possible, sir, but I'm afraid not very likely." "No, perhaps not, but, as you admit, possible."