64 THE DAME. 



entreated us to say nothing, as he should be sorry, he said, 

 for her to get into trouble on his account. We were devising, 

 nevertheless, some quiet means of sifting this matter to the 

 bottom, with a view to recover, if possible, the lad's little 

 property, when we were spared in an unlooked-for manner 

 the trouble of taking any measures for the purpose. 



The dislike and alarm evinced unconsciously by poor Tim 

 on occasion of Dame Huggins's single visit to his sick cham- 

 ber, seemed (to judge by her subsequent proceedings) quite 

 reciprocal. Both in the time of the old sexton and since his 

 death, she had always slept in the upper room contiguous to 

 that of her lodgers ; but on the very day of the above occur- 

 rence she carried her bed down stairs, making her nightly lair 

 thenceforward in a corner of the kitchen ; an arrangement 

 which none opposed, as it left her former room open for the 

 more convenient occupancy of the woman who attended upon 

 Tim. One night (it was that directly following the lad's dis- 

 closure to us of his loss and his suspicions) he was sound 

 asleep his nurse watching near, or possibly asleep too, when 

 she was suddenly startled by a loud noise as of a heavy fall 

 below. Tim started, but did not wake. The woman, listen- 

 ing, thought she heard a moaning, and then, taking up the 

 rushlight, crept softly down the ladder-stairs into the kitchen. 

 There a sight presented itself which sufficiently explained the 

 previous sounds. On the brick floor, near the walnut tree 

 chest, lay the old woman ; and close by the same receptacle 



