anybody who attempted to escape that way; two remained on guard outside the front door; the others slipped off their boots, and Charlie noiselessly admitted himself and them with his latchkey. I had watched for about twenty minutes in an agony of dread, when I saw the door open, and my husband came out. He was by my side almost immediately, and told me what had passed. Nobody met them in the hall, and they made their entry quite unperceived. It may be wondered at that no one was on the watch to give the alarm. But the plate-room was at the back of the house, away from the road; and besides, we were supposed to be safe at Oakwood by this time-where, but for a most fortunate accident, we should have been-and 'Mr Allardyce' and his gang thought themselves perfectly secure from interruption. Charlie and his party crept cautiously up the stairs, hearing voices and laughter coming from above. On the first landing was a wooden piano-case, in which ingenious and innocent receptacle our plate was to be packed, and put on the truck which was waiting at the door; in which guise it might safely be trusted to elude the notice of every policeman in London. The thieves were so secure in their fancied safety, that when the door was pushed open and they found themselves surrounded by the policemen with drawn truncheons, they were blank with amazement. 'Mr Allardyce-not in clerical costume this time-had opened the press with the false keys, which the wax impressions he had taken enabled him to make. A second man, the driver of the truck at the door, was standing by with a chisel; and my saintly parlour-maid, laughing at the ruse which had been successfully practised on her master and mistress, was helping the housemaid to roll up the plate in green baize bags. 'Mr Allardyce' drew a revolver; but before it could be discharged, he was stunned by a blow from the sergeant's truncheon. The others were quickly secured, and escorted by the policemen, were driven off to the nearest police court, to be charged before the sitting magistrate. Our plate was saved; but it had the narrowest escape in the world. Only ten minutes more, and the thieves would have got clear off with their booty, and we should never have seen a vestige of it again. betraying the house to her accomplices. These burglaries remained profound mysteries, thanks to her consummate hypocrisy; her complicity in them never having been suspected. Her entering my service was not the result of chance, but the consequence of one of the gang one day hearing a remark that Dr Lester of Notting Hill had some valuable plate. At first, she and her confederates thought of carrying it off in a night attack; but the difficulties in the way, thanks to Charlie's wise precautions, caused them to change their plans, and they concluded to try the stratagem I have recorded. The four were tried, and each sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. A few days after the trial was concluded, I was astonished to receive a call from my old housemaid Jane, who had been dismissed for dishonesty. She told me that she had only just heard of what had taken place; and that had emboldened her to come and tell me that she was sure Eliza, knowing her box would be searched, had purposely placed articles belonging to me in it that very morning, to insure her dismissal. She said that one or two things Eliza had said to her indicated very little regard for other people's property; but, finding that Jane was honest, Eliza pretended to turn it all off as a joke. But from that time forth she no doubt made up her mind to get rid of Jane, as an obstacle in the way of her schemes. It is needless to say that I at once took Jane back into my service, and that she is with me now. We had had a lesson. We sent all our plate off to the bank the next morning. People who come to dine with us, see a good deal of silver, as they imagine; but it is chiefly electro-plate. One attempted burglary is quite enough in a lifetime. We renewed the acquaintance with the real Mr Allardyce, so strangely begun, and he is now one of our most valued friends. We often joke about his 'garden-party' which never came off. But if our parlour-maid had succeeded in her nefarious designs, there would really have been no joke in the matter. A TALE OF A SIXPENNY TELEGRAM. THE sixpenny telegram may prove a priceless The conspirators had contrived to send cook boon to the British nation at large, but at present on an errand which would detain her an hour it stands to my individual mind as the symbol or two, soon after Charlie and I left. The of something intensely disagreeable. On that housemaid-who, it will be remembered, came inauspicious first of October when the new to me through Eliza-was in the plot; and they thought themselves safe. The parlour-maid in arrangement was thrust upon us, I received a whom I trusted so implicitly was a member, message, handed in at a London office, which sub rosa, of the swell-mob, of which distin- ran as follows: guished profession Mr Allardyce,' who had received a good education, was one of the brightest ornaments. He had written the letter from JENKINS.' Folkestone by means of which she entered my A very innocent and ordinary communication, service. Eliza derived her knowledge of Oakwood to all appearance, and yet that innocent-seeming and of Mr Allardyce's affairs through having message was the means of breaking off one maronce stayed there for a few weeks with a family riage, of precipitating another, and of losing me in whose service she was. For four or five 'TO FREDERICK AUGUSTUS SMITH-SIMPKINS, 56 Langham Hotel.-Bring Digby on Saturday. years she had played a game similar to that a fortune! The sender had curtailed his name and omitted his address in order to compress his telegram within the sixpenny limit; but there was no doubt in my mind as to the identity of the stock, but knew very little about his people or sender. I knew only one man named Jenkins belongings. When our party broke up, he told -my mother's eldest brother, Albert Victor- us that he was going to sail for Melbourne in Emmanuel Smith-Jenkins. The wisdom which a few weeks; and we each shook him heartily declined to pay an extra halfpenny on each of by the hand and wished him a prosperous those high-sounding baptismal designations was voyage. certainly to be extolled. It was only a pity, I thought, that they could not be similarly suppressed on all the other occasions of life. The taste which our family has always displayed for a lengthy and would-be imposing nomenclature has been anything but a source of pleasure to for nearly five-and-twenty years I have positively groaned under the burden of my own four names; and the tiny tax levied upon the Smith-Paynes, the Smith-Jenkinses, and the Smith-Simpkinses, is the only thing connected with the new telegraphic regulations which wins my cordial approval. me; To return to my uncle and his message. It was perfectly plain and intelligible, in spite of its brevity. A favourite niece, to whom he had been lately playing the part of father, was to be married next Saturday, from his house, to a baronet. I had been invited to the wedding; and here was a further request that I would bring young Digby, a mutual acquaintance, with me. It was a somewhat odd and informal manner of inviting him; but my uncle was an eccentric man, accustomed to do things of this sort. He had returned within the last few months from a trip to the antipodes, accompanied by a widowed sister and her daughter, the Australian belle who was to be married on Saturday. The young lady, or her mother, had evidently contrived to captivate the old gentleman during the short time they had known him, for he had already signified his intention of leaving her the half of his fortune, provided that she married to his satisfaction. This condition she was just about to fulfil, so that her inheritance might be regarded as perfectly safe. The other moiety of his property was to be bequeathed to me, and in my case there was a condition of general good behaviour, without any specific demand. I had never heard Uncle Bert speak of Digby, and therefore had no idea what terms of inti macy they were upon. My own acquaintance with him was of a somewhat casual though very pleasant sort. Three seasons ago, I joined four or five other men in hiring a Highland moor, and he had been one of our party. I was so unfortunate during our sojourn in those remote regions as to dislocate my ankle; and in the absence of regular medical aid, Digby showed himself a skilful amateur surgeon, and afterwards relinquished many hours of sport with his friends, in order to sit by my sofa and help me to while away the tedium of my idle days. We all liked him exceedingly for his neverfailing bonhomie, and for a certain charm of presence and manner that no one could resist. I always understood that he came of a good old I never set eyes on the man again from that day to the 30th of September last. I had been up in town for a week, and had been dining that evening with my old chum, Bob Collier, a good fellow, but gifted with an unsurpassed genius for plunging himself into scrapes and for dragging in his friends after him. After dinner we adjourned to a certain well-known music-hall. Bob eschews the British drama, and patronises no public place of amusement in London other than a music-hall, on principle-at least he says so. We had not taken our seats more than five minutes, when we simultaneously recognised Digby's noticeable face only a few yards away from us. I went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder, and he remembered us both in an instant. I said to myself, after a little scrutiny of his features, that he must have been living his life pretty fast out there in Melbourne. The last three years had set their mark upon him; but he was still strikingly handsome, and his manner was just as bright and gay and genial as ever. We spent the rest of the evening together, and in the course of our talk it came out that Digby had met Uncle Bert in Australia. 'And do you know my cousin, Fanny Dasher, who is to be married on Saturday?' I inquired. 'I have met her,' he answered, and then began rather hurriedly to speak of something else. We separated soon after midnight, Bob reminding me, as we said good-night, of an engagement I had made with him for the following week. He was the owner of a small yacht, and we were to take a cruise in her, weather permitting, after his return from a few days' shooting in The yacht was then undergoing some repairs, but by that time she would be ready for us at Erith. Essex. 'Now, don't throw me over, old man,' Bob entreated plaintively, 'with a tale about important business, &c., &c. I shall be back in town in a week or ten days, and shall depend upon you.' 'All right, Villikins,' I answered, giving him the nickname which, for certain reasons connected him in our school-days. I shall be in town with a then popular song, we had fastened upon usual at the Langham.' again, too, before then, and you will find me as This arrangement having been satisfactorily concluded, we departed our several ways. The above is a brief account of my acquaintance with Lancelot Digby: the story of my uncle's connection with him has yet to be told. It was on the following morning that I received wedding was to take place in two days. I wrote the telegram; that was on Thursday, and the a note to Digby, at the address he had given me, intimating my uncle's desire that he should grace Miss Fanny Dasher's nuptials, and then sallied into the street to look up a friend. At the very first corner, I came suddenly face to face with Journal Digby again, and repeated the substance of my now superfluous note. 'That is a very funny joke,' he said, looking at me with an odd expression; and if you knew all I knew you would think it a good deal funnier.' 'It's no joke at all,' I said. 'Here's the telegram.' I happened to have thrust it into my pocket in a fit of absent-mindedness, instead of tearing it up, the most natural proceeding, and now drew it out and showed it to him. We stood in the doorway of a tobacconist's shop, and he stared at the four words of the message and at the sender's name for some moments, in apparent bewilderment; then his eyes flashed with sudden comprehension, and he broke out into a loud fit of laughter. 'What is there to laugh at in this?' I exclaimed. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, quickly sobering down. There is really nothing to laugh at. I am a fool. I-I don't know whether I shall be able to go; but I'm much obliged to him for the compliment all the same.' And then he hastily left me, saying that he had an appointment to keep. I returned to my home in Liverpool on Friday evening, without having seen or heard anything more of Digby. Uncle Bert lived at Southport; and the next morning I took a train which would give me time to reach his house about half-past ten. I had just entered an unoccupied first-class carriage, when I saw Digby on the platform, arrayed in a wedding garment of faultless cut and fit. I beckoned to him from the window, and he came in and took his seat beside me. One glance at the man showed me something unusual in his look and manner. He talked in a distrait, unconnected fashion, and once or twice broke out into snatches of colonial songs. He was paler, too, than ordinary, and, while lighting a cigar, his hand trembled so that he could hardly hold the match. I did not like these signs at all, and began to feel vaguely uncomfortable and apprehensive. We took a cab from the station to Balmoral Lodge, one of the largest and most imposinglooking houses in Southport, representing the accumulated gains of three generations of Liverpool shipbrokers. For years, there had only been one thing wanting to complete my uncle's earthly happiness-the affiliation by marriage of our family to the titled class. This dream of his life was now about to be realised; and I pictured to myself the way in which he would come forward to receive us, his normal pomposity aggravated tenfold, in order to do credit to this occasion and to his 'friend Sir Marmaduke Fitzhugh.' He was not visible, however, when we entered, although we heard his voice in the distance anathematising the butler for having put out the wrong claret. The page-boy requested us to walk up into the drawing-room; and we followed him across a wide hall, adorned with beautiful ferns and flowering plants. Digby tramped noisily across the marble floor, switching to right and left the gloves that should have been upon his hands, reckless of the flowers; and at the foot of the stairs he contrived to throw down a stand of sticks and umbrellas with a dreadful clatter. on the 'Gently!' I whispered reprovingly. He turned upon me with a half-laugh, and his lips parted to emit some indistinct guttural sounds. I really believe that he was very point, just then, of breaking out into one of his camp-fire songs. He preceded me on the staircase, and just before we reached the top he turned round and caught me by the shoulder. His face was flushed now, instead of being pale, and there was a wild light in his eyes. 'I say, old man,' he said, 'how would you feel if you were coming to this wedding in the character of Young Lochinvar, or the Master of Ravenswood, or something of that sort? You wouldn't manage to look quite so douce and well-behaved then, I fancy.' I don't know how I looked, but I remember very well how I felt. Digby's strange words and reckless bearing seemed to threaten some horrible catastrophe, and I could not rid myself of the idea that I was in some way responsible for him. In another instant the page had thrown open the drawing-room door and announced us. It was too late then to turn back or to try to make my escape. I must go through with the adventure to the bitter end. There were over a dozen persons in the room when we entered, besides the six bridesmaids. Mrs Dasher was not present; she was assisting in the adornment of the bride, and her place as hostess was, for the moment, filled by a Mrs Cochrane, who seemed to be a sort of second cousin to nearly everybody there. This lady was all smiles and amiability, as befitted the occasion. She welcomed me effusively, although I had never met her more than twice in my life, and said something soft and pretty to my companion, who was quite unknown to her. I had taken very little interest in this wedding, either in bridegroom or bride. I suppose that no woman could have been present at such a ceremony without being at the pains to make herself acquainted beforehand with a dozen details, of which I remained contentedly ignorant. My masculine cursoriness took everything for granted. Perhaps I might have concerned myself more about those romantic accessories which popular imagination has grouped around the every-day fact of a wedding, if the bride had ever inspired me with any interest. But I had seen very little of her during the few months she had been in England, and although we were first cousins, we were almost strangers to each other. I was told that she had been the belle of her native township in Australia; but neither her looks, style, nor manner commended themselves to my taste. The bridegroom I had not even seen. The match had been made up by my uncle, somewhat hastily, and I suspected that it was more or less of a mariage des convenances. For the present, I was too much occupied in watching Digby to have thoughts or eyes for anybody else's concerns. The prettiest of the bridesmaids came up and began to talk to me, and I answered her at random, while my eyes wandered off every other minute in his direction. He was apparently behaving very well, talking politely to a feminine fogey, the bride's great-aunt. After a while, I noticed that he glanced again and again through the partially closed door. What was the meaning of that? I discourteously abandoned my young lady, and took a seat on the opposite side of the room, where I also could command a view of whatever that halfopen door might reveal. It revealed nothing nothing but the empty corridor. Presently, it occurred to me that the time was going on very fast. The bride must speedily appear, unless we intended to drive the ceremony perilously near twelve o'clock. A lady saw me looking at the clock, and said: 'Oh, you need not be afraid. I was never at a wedding yet where the bride was not dreadfully late, and yet the service was always over in time. There's a special providence to watch over marriages.' 'Or a cunning demon,' whispered an incorrigible bachelor at my elbow. Just then, a late guest, who had missed his train, came in. His entrance caused a little bustle; and when it had subsided, I looked round, and saw that Digby had disappeared. A moment later, and our ears were greeted with an hysterical scream. Ah, poor darling! it has been too much for her nerves,' the ladies exclaimed, and rushed out pell-mell into the corridor; while the men looked at each other in bewildered discomfort. I followed the feminine part of the company, and beheld my cousin Fanny, arrayed in her bridal robes, reclining in a fainting-fit upon a sort of divan, and partially supported by Lancelot Digby's arm. There was the usual fatuous attempt to suffocate the sufferer by crowding around her, and the customary panic-stricken cries for water, smelling-salts, a fan. Some one asked, 'Where is her mother?' and as soon as the words were uttered, Mrs Dasher appeared upon the scene. She had gone to her room to make her own toilet, after putting the finishing touches to her daughter's, and had hastily thrust herself into a gown of gorgeous crimson satin, as soon as she heard Fanny's scream. As she made her way through the sympathetic group, her eye fell upon Digby, and then she, too, uttered an exclamation, and sank down pale and breathless upon the nearest chair. The same instant, we heard my uncle's voice shouting out a concluding admonition to the butler, as he ascended the stairs. 'Come, come,' he said, bursting in upon us; 'it's time to go-not a moment to spare. Keep your hysterics till afterwards. What the' And then he also became white and speechless. This promised to be diverting. Was he going to follow the example of his sister and niece, and collapse in a fainting-fit? I looked round, and saw that there was no chair at hand. If he fainted, he must fall to the ground, unless some of the ladies were kind enough to sustain him in their arms. But he did not faint; his pallor was only the pallor of a white-heat rage. Quickly recovering his power of speech, he broke out into a storm of incoherent anathemas; then suddenly remembering the presence of the ladies and the necessity for preserving appearances, reiterated once more that there was not a moment to spare, and drove us all down-stairs before him, and into the carriages that were waiting at the door. I never knew exactly what became of Lancelot Digby at this point, or how he got out of the house. He had ceased to support the robust form of the fainting bride, who was borne off to her own room by her mother and a bevy of excited maidservants; and in the general confusion, I lost sight of him. We found the bridegroom and his best-man waiting at the church. The sight of Sir Marmaduke Fitzhugh's puny figure and Dutch-doll inane face led me to think that if Fanny Dasher had consented to marry him for his name and position, despising him in her heart, it was not to her credit; and if she did not despise him, her own taste was truly to be deplored. The service was to have commenced at eleven; at half-past, the bride had not appeared. The two clergymen who were to officiate conferred anxiously with the gentlemen of our party, and the poor little bridegroom's distress and nervousness were pitiable to witness. The minutes went by our watches pointed to the quarter now; it was perfectly evident that there could be no wedding to-day. Nevertheless, we lingered in the church for another five minutes, to see whether anything would happen. Then the clergymen took off their surplices; and the luckless wedding guests, with the still more luckless bridegroom, re-entered the carriages, amid the jeers of the crowd that had collected round the church doors, and drove back to Balmoral Lodge. Uncle Bert and his sister received us upon our return with a discomfiture which they tried very ineffectually to conceal. Fanny, they said, was suffering from a nervous attack, and had declared that she could not go to church that day-could not, or would not, it was much the same thing with a young lady suffering from an affection of the nerves. So the disappointed bridegroom went back to his hotel, and all the guests departed, with the exception of one or two old friends who were staying in the house. But what on earth was the explanation of this singular fiasco? Why had this terrible wedding guest been invited? Above all, why was the outrage of his presence to be visited upon my head? My uncle's fury burst out with the utmost violence as soon as we were left alone together. "Why, you asked me to bring him, yourself,' I said. 'Don't fling a lie in my very face, sir!' he retorted; and I found it impossible to make him listen to a word of reason. 'It was a very clever trick of yours to bring that man here,' he shouted out after me as I was leaving the house; but you will find that you have outwitted yourself. You will regret that you did it, to the last day of your life.' On my way back to Liverpool, the thought occurred to me, was there really anything wrong with that telegram, which my uncle so strenu ously denied all knowledge of? I had unluckily destroyed it by this time, and so had only my bare word to urge against his. Was it a stupid hoax, perpetrated by some idiotic acquaintance, or a clever device of Digby's to gain entrance to my uncle's house? I had not long to wait for a solution of this Journal part of the puzzle. Arriving at home, I found a letter from Bob Collier, which I transcribe at length: DEAR SIMPKINS-I presume you got my telegram all right on Thursday. I lost no time in sending off one of the new sixpenny ones, but don't see that they are such a wonderful improvement, especially when you have to wire to fellows with names like yours. I shall be back in town on Friday or Saturday week, and hope to find you at the Langham, per agreement. Will Digby be able to join us? He seems a very agreeable fellow, of the quiet and steady sort. [Bob's perception of character was not very keen.] I hate going out with a man whom you're not sure of, and who is as likely as not to lug you into some scrape. Send me a line before the end of the week.-Yours ever, B. C., alias 'VILLIKINS.' P.S-Be sure to give my most affectionate regards to your dear uncle; you know he has always doted upon me. So it was Bob who had sent the message, and the post-office clerks had converted 'Villikins' into Jenkins.' Why had I not connected him with the muddle and mystification before, by a natural association of ideas? It may be his fault or it may be his fate, but if he has only so much as his little finger in any affair, it is sure to end in an imbroglio. This is the worst turn, however, that you have ever done me yet, Master Bob, and I don't find it easy to forgive you. Why need he have telegraphed all my four names at length, and then rigidly curtailed all the important part of the communication within the sixpenny limit, as if an extra penny or threehalfpence were a matter of vital consequence to him? Why, indeed? It was just one of his usual fatuous proceedings, which no one could have explained, not even himself. That same evening, I was passing the entrance to the North-western Station, when I saw a cab drive up, from which alighted Lancelot Digby, and a lady so closely veiled and muffled as almost to elude recognition. Nevertheless, I felt certain that it was my cousin Fanny; and following the couple warily in the crowd, I saw them enter a first-class carriage in the up-train that was just on the point of starting. Next day, it was known all over Liverpool and Southport that Fanny Dasher had eloped with a fortune-hunter from Australia, on the very day on which she was to have been married to Sir Marmaduke Fitzhugh. By degrees, I learned other details, which made the story clearer to my understanding. Fanny Dasher had possessed a fortune of her own before she had had any thought of inheriting Uncle Bert's money; and he had found her, upon his arrival in New South Wales, surrounded by a swarm of interested suitors, of whom Lancelot Digby was the most favoured. He had carried her off to England, away from them all, intending that she should make a brilliant marriage, of which he would reap some of the honour and glory. Digby followed her, without, I believe, any settled plan of action, but trusting to his handsome face and the chapter of accidents; and the result justified his faith. Many of Fanny's friends commiserated her for having become his prey; but their pity was scarcely deserved. She was twenty-five years old, and she knew the world -knew it much better than most young women of her age. As for Digby, he might not be a of the most charming men and perfect gentlevery eligible partner, but he was externally one men whom it has ever been my lot to meet. It is I who am really most entitled to commiseration. Uncle Bert will never forgive me for my involuntary part in the affair, and has already willed away all his property to charities. He persists in believing that I aided and abetted Digby, in the hope of profiting by Fanny's disgrace, and stigmatises my account of the telegram as a mystification, if not something worse. I called upon Bob Collier to corroborate my statement, but with the worst success. witness only served to damage my case. uncle has always detested him, and promptly saluted him as conspirator number three. Such a My This is the conclusion of my story-a most unsatisfactory one, so far as I am concerned. They say that all vexations and calamities carry with them some counterbalancing good, in the shape of wisdom and experience. I don't know that my late disagreeable adventure has brought me any such gain, unless it be a deepened impression of the value and beauty of brevity in proper names. I now write myself plain Frederick Simpkins. From this time forward, let none of my acquaintances address me as Frederick Augustus Smith-Simpkins, on pain of the cut direct. 'PAPA WILL PAY.' 'Ir is all right; papa will pay.' Few people have any notion of the misery wrought in many a middle-class family by the conduct of some shopkeepers in the matter of juvenile debtors. A lad, indeed, only needs to have impudence enough and heartlessness enough to obtain any bauble he craves for, so ready is this class of tradesmen to accord credit to the sons of well-to-do parents. We say 'sons' advisedly; for no instance of a young lady bringing trouble into the domestic circle in this way has ever come under our notice. Juvenile debtors of the fair sex may certainly exist, but they are rare; whilst so easy is it for a middle-class boy to get over head and ears into debt, to say nothing of pawning anything in the shape of family valuables he can lay hands on, that we are compelled to believe the habit of obtaining goods on the one hand and of relying on the dictum, ' Papa will pay' on the other, to be sadly common. Here are a few facts. The youthful A and B, aged respectively eleven and thirteen, took it into their heads one afternoon to quit their homes and put up at a little country inn, some distance off, whither their parents, middle-class London folks, living on between two and three hundred a year, had once taken them to as a holiday treat. Now, the proprietor of this house must have been perfectly well aware that something was wrong. Children are never sent to inns alone under any circumstances; and people of small means would never dream of putting themselves to the expense of hotel accommodation for the sake of affording two boys a little treat. The duty of the host |