“Yes, yes, I have no doubt; she’s a very good woman, a very fair woman, don’t you think so, Miss—­”

“My name is Saunders.”

“A very good name.  I knew a fine family of that name when I was younger.  There was one of them—­his name was Robert—­” Here she rambled on for several minutes as if this topic and no other filled her whole mind; then, as if suddenly brought back to what started it, she uttered in sudden anxiety, “You think well of Mrs. Packard?  You have confidence in her?”

I allowed myself to speak with all the enthusiasm she so greedily desired.

“Indeed I have,” I cried.  “I think she can be absolutely depended on to do the right thing every time.  You are fortunate in having such good neighbors at the time of this mishap.”

At this minute Miss Charity reentered.  Her panting condition, as well as the unsettled position of the cap on her head, told very plainly where she had been.  Reseating herself, she looked at Miss Thankful and Miss Thankful looked at her, but no word passed.  They evidently understood each other.

“I’m obliged to Mrs. Packard,” now fell from Miss Thankful’s lips, “and to you, too, young lady, for acquainting us with this accident.  The passage we extended ourselves after taking up our abode in this house.  We—­we did not see why we should not profit by our ancestor’s old and undiscovered wine-cellar to secure certain things which were valuable to us.”

Her hesitation in uttering this final sentence—­a sentence all the more marked because naturally, she was a very straightforward person—­awoke my doubt and caused me to ask myself what she meant by this word “secure.”  Did she mean, as circumstances went to show and as I had hitherto believed, that they had opened up this passage for the purpose of a private search in their old home for the lost valuables they believed to be concealed there?  Or had they, under some temporary suggestion of their disorganized brains, themselves hidden away among the rafters of this unexplored spot the treasure they believed lost and now constantly bewailed?

The doubt thus temporarily raised in my mind made me very uneasy for a moment, but I soon dismissed it and dropping this subject for the nonce, began to speak of the houses as they now looked and of the changes which had evidently been made in them since they had left the one and entered the other.

“I understand,” I ventured at last, “that in those days this house also had a door opening on the alley-way.  Where did it lead—­do you mind my asking?—­into a room or into a hallway?  I am so interested in old houses.”

They did not resent this overt act of curiosity; I had expected Miss Thankful to, but she didn’t.  Some recollection connected with the name of Saunders had softened her heart toward me and made her regard with indulgence an interest which she might otherwise have looked upon as intrusive.