Richard seemed a little afraid of the responsibility of treasure-trove, but he was overruled by a chorus of eager voices, and dispossessed of the trowel, which he had brought to dig up some down-gentians for the garden. While Norman set to work as pioneer, some skipped about in wild ecstasy, and Ethel knelt down to peer into the hole.

Very soon there was a discovery--an eager outcry--some pottery! Roman vessels--a red thing that might have been a lamp, another that might have been a lachrymatory.

"Well," said Ethel, "you know, Norman, I always told you that the children's pots and pans in the clay ditch were very like Roman pottery."

"Posthumus's patty pan!" said Norman, holding it up. "No doubt this was the bottle filled with the old queen's tears when Cloten was killed."

"You see it is very small," added Harry; "she could not squeeze out many."

"Come now, I do believe you are laughing at it!" said Meta, taking the derided vessels into her hands. "Now, they really are genuine, and very curious things, are not they, Flora?"

Flora and Ethel admired and speculated till there was a fresh, and still more exciting discovery--a coin, actually a medal, with the head of an emperor upon it--not a doubt of his high nose being Roman. Meta was certain that she knew one exactly like him among her father's gems.

Ethel was resolved that he should be Claudius, and began decyphering the defaced inscription THVRVS. She tried Claudius's whole torrent of names, and, at last, made it into a contraction of Tiberius, which highly satisfied her.

Then Meta, in her turn, read D.V.X., which, as Ethel said, was all she could wish--of course it was dux et imperator, and Harry muttered into Norman's ear, "ducks and geese!" and then heaved a sigh, as he thought of the dux no longer. "V.V.," continued Meta; "what can that mean?"

"Five, five, of course," said Flora.

"No, no! I have it, Venus Victrix" said Ethel, "the ancestral Venus! Ha!

don't you see? there she is on the other side, crowning Claudius."

"Then there is an E."

"Something about Aeneas," suggested Norman gravely. But Ethel was sure that could not be, because there was no diphthong; and a fresh theory was just being started, when Blanche's head was thrust in to know what made them all so busy.

"Why, Ethel, what are you doing with Harry's old medal of the Duke of Wellington?"

Poor Meta and Ethel, what a downfall! Meta was sure that Norman had known it the whole time, and he owned to having guessed it from Harry's importunity for the search. Harry and Mary had certainly made good use of their time, and great was the mirth over the trap so cleverly set--the more when it was disclosed that Dr. May had been a full participator in the scheme, had suggested the addition of the pottery, had helped Harry to some liquid to efface part of the inscription, and had even come up with them to plant the snare in the most plausible corner for researches.

Meta, enchanted with the joke, flew off to try to take in her governess and Mrs. Wilmot, whom she found completing their leisurely promenade, and considering where they should spread the dinner.

The sight of those great baskets of good fare was appetising, and the company soon collected on the shady turf, where Richard made himself extremely useful, and the feast was spread without any worse mishap than Nipen's running away with half a chicken, of which he was robbed, as Tom reported, by a surly-looking dog that watched in the outskirts of the camp, and caused Tom to return nearly as fast as the poor little white marauder.

Meta "very immorally," as Norman told her, comforted Nipen with a large share of her sandwiches. Harry armed himself with a stick and Mary with a stone, and marched off to the attack, but saw no signs of the enemy, and had begun to believe him a figment of Tom's imagination, when Mary spied him under a bush, lying at the feet of a boy, with whom he was sharing the spoil.

Harry called out rather roughly, "Hallo! what are you doing there?"

The boy jumped up, the dog growled, Mary shrank behind her brother, and begged him not to be cross to the poor boy, but to come away. Harry repeated his question.

"Please, sir, Toby brought it to me."

"What, is Toby your dog?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you so hungry as to eat dog's meat?"

"I have not had nothing before to-day, sir."

"Why, where do you live? hereabouts?"

"Oh, no, sir; I lived with grandmother up in Cheshire, but she is dead now, and father is just come home from sea, and he wrote down I was to be sent to him at Portsmouth, to go to sea with him."

"How do you live? do you beg your way?"

"No, sir; father sent up a pound in a letter, only Nanny Brooks said I owed some to her for my victuals, and I have not much of it left, and bread comes dear, so when Toby brought me this bit of meat I was glad of it, sir, but I would not have taken it--"

The boy was desired to wait while the brother and sister, in breathless excitement, rushed back with their story.

Mrs. Wilmot was at first inclined to fear that the naval part of it had been inspired by Harry's uniform, but the examination of Jem Jennings put it beyond a doubt that he spoke nothing but the truth; and the choicest delight of the feast was the establishing him and Toby behind the barrow, and feeding them with such viands as they had probably never seen before.

The boy could not read writing, but he had his father's letter in his pocket, and Mary capered at the delightful coincidence, on finding that Jem Jennings was actually a quarter-master on board the Alcestis. It gave a sort of property in the boy, and she almost grudged Meta the having been first to say that she would pay for the rest of his journey, instead of doing it by subscription.

However, Mary had a consolation, she would offer to take charge of Toby, who, as Harry observed, would otherwise have been drowned--he could not be taken on board. To be sure, he was a particularly ugly animal, rough, grisly, short-legged, long-backed, and with an apology for a tail--but he had a redeeming pair of eyes, and he and Jem lived on terms of such close friendship, that he would have been miserable in leaving him to the mercy of Nanny Brooks.

So, after their meal, Jem and Toby were bidden to wait for Dr. May's coming, and fell asleep together on the green bank, while the rest either sketched, or wandered, or botanised. Flora acted the grown-up lady with Mrs. Wilmot, and Meta found herself sitting by Ethel, asking her a great many questions about Margaret, and her home, and what it could be like to be one of such a numerous family. Flora had always turned aside from personal matters, as uninteresting to her companion, and, in spite of Meta's admiration, and the mutual wish to be intimate, confidence did not spring up spontaneously, as it had done with the doctor, and, in that single hour, with Margaret. Blunt as Ethel was, her heartiness of manner gave a sense of real progress in friendship. Their Confirmation vows seemed to make a link, and Meta's unfeigned enthusiasm for the doctor was the sure road to Ethel's heart. She was soon telling how glad Margaret was that he had been drawn into taking pleasure in to-day's scheme, since, not only were his spirits tried by the approach of Harry's departure, but he had, within the last few days, been made very sad by reading and answering Aunt Flora's first letter on the news of last October's misfortune.

"My aunt in New Zealand," explained Ethel.

"Have you an aunt in New Zealand?" cried Meta. "I never heard of her!"

"Did not you? Oh! she does write such charming long letters!"

"Is she Dr. May's sister?"

"No; he was an only child. She is dear mamma's sister. I don't remember her, for she went out when I was a baby, but Richard and Margaret were so fond of her. They say she used to play with them, and tell them stories, and sing Scotch songs to them. Margaret says the first sorrow of her life was Aunt Flora's going away."

"Did she live with them?"

"Yes; after grandpapa died, she came to live with them, but then Mr.

Arnott came about. I ought not to speak evil of him, for he is my godfather, but we do wish he had not carried off Aunt Flora! That letter of hers showed me what a comfort it would be to papa to have her here."

"Perhaps she will come."

"No; Uncle Arnott has too much to do. It was a pretty story altogether.

He was an officer at Edinburgh, and fell in love with Aunt Flora, but my grandfather Mackenzie thought him too poor to marry her, and it was all broken off, and they tried to think no more of it. But grandpapa died, and she came to live here, and somehow Mr. Arnott turned up again, quartered at Whitford, and papa talked over my Uncle Mackenzie, and helped them--and Mr. Arnott thought the best way would be to go out to the colonies. They went when New Zealand was very new, and a very funny life they had! Once they had their house burned in Heki's rebellion--and Aunt Flora saw a Maori walking about in her best Sunday bonnet; but, in general, everything has gone on very well, and he has a great farm, besides an office under government."

"Oh, so he went out as a settler! I was in hopes it was as a missionary."

"I fancy Aunt Flora has done a good deal that may be called missionary work," said Ethel, "teaching the Maori women and girls. They call her mother, and she has quite a doctor's shop for them, and tries hard to teach them to take proper care of their poor little children when they are ill; and she cuts out clothes for the whole pah, that is, the village."

"And are they Christians?"

"Oh! to be sure they are now! They meet in the pah for prayers every morning and evening--they used to have a hoe struck against a bit of metal for a signal, and when papa heard of it, he gave them a bell, and they were so delighted. Now there comes a clergyman every fourth Sunday, and, on the others, Uncle Arnott reads part of the service to the English near, and the Maori teacher to his people."

Meta asked ravenously for more details, and when she had pretty well exhausted Ethel's stock, she said, "How nice it must be! Ethel, did you ever read the 'Faithful Little Girl?'"

"Yes; it was one of Margaret's old Sunday books. I often recollected it before I was allowed to begin Cocksmoor."