'You are now the mistress, dearie,' said Dorcas. 'It is time that you should learn what that means.'

It was the morning after the funeral—the Day of Accession—the beginning of the new reign.

'Why, Dorcas, it makes no difference, does it? There are still the flowers and the house and everything.'

'Yes—there's everything.' The old woman nodded her head meaningly. 'Oh! yes—there is everything. Oh! you don't know—you don't suspect—nobody knows—what a surprise is in store for you!'

'What surprise, Dorcas?'

'You've never been into her room except to see her lying dead. It's your room now. You can go in whenever you like. Always the master or the mistress has slept in that room. When her father-in-law died she took the room. And she's slept in it ever since. And no one, except me and Chessun to clean up and sweep and dust, has ever been in that room since. And now it's yours.'

'Well, Dorcas, it may be mine; but I shall go on sleeping in my own room.'

'Then keep it locked—keep it locked up—day and night. There's nobody in Samson to dread—but keep it locked! As for sleeping in it, time enough, perhaps, when you come to marry. But keep it locked——'

'Why, Dorcas, what is in it?'

'I am seventy-five years old and past,' Dorcas went on. 'I was fifteen when I came to the house, and here I've been ever since. Not one of the grandchildren nor the great-grandchildren ever came in here. No one ever knew what is kept here.'

'What is it, then?' Armorel asked again.

'She used to come here alone, by daylight, regularly once a month. She locked the door when she came in. No one ever knew what she was doing, and no one ever asked. One day she forgot to lock the door, and by accident I opened it, and saw what she was doing.'

'What was she doing?'

'She'd opened all the cupboards and boxes, and she'd spread out all the things, and was counting, and—no, no—you may guess, when you have looked for yourself, what she was doing. I shut the door softly, and she never knew that I'd looked in upon her. She might have been overseen from the orchard, but no one ever went in there except to gather the fruit. To make safe, however, I've put up a muslin blind now, because Peter might take it into his head—boys go everywhere peering and prying. Nobody knows what I saw. I never even told Justinian. Men blab, you see: they get together, and they drink—then they blab. You can never trust a man with a secret. How long would it be before Peter would let it out if he knew? Once over at Hugh Town, drinking at a bar, and all the world would know in half an hour. No, no; the secret was hers: it was mine as well—but that was an accident—she never knew that: now it will be yours and mine. And we will tell nobody—nobody at all.'

'Where shall I find this wonderful secret, Dorcas?'

'Wherever you look, dearie. Oh! the room is full of things. There can't be such another room in all the world. It's crammed with things. Look everywhere. If they knew, all the young lords and princes would be at your feet, Armorel, because you are so rich. Best keep it secret, though, and get richer.'

'I so rich? Dorcas, you are joking!'

'No—you shall look and find out. Not that you will understand at first—because, how should you know the value of things? Here's her bunch of keys. She always carried them in her pocket, and at night she kept them under her pillows—and there I found them, sure enough, when she was cold and dead. Take them, child. I never told her secret—no—not even to my own husband. Take the keys, child. They are yours—your own. You can open everything: you can look at everything: you can do what you like with everything. It's your inheritance. But tell no one,' she repeated, earnestly. 'Oh! my dear, let it remain a secret. Don't let anyone see you when you come in here. Lock the door, as she did—and keep it locked.'

The old woman led Armorel by the hand to the door of the room where there was to be found the Great Surprise. She opened it, placed a bunch of keys in her hand, pushed her in and closed it behind her, whispering, 'Lock it, and keep it locked.'

The girl turned the key obediently, wondering what would happen next.

The room was on the ground floor, looking out upon the orchard, with a northern aspect, so that the sun could only shine in for a small portion of the year, during the summer months. The apple-trees were now in blossom, the white pink and flowers bright in the sunshine contrasting with the grey lichen which wrapped every branch and hung down like ribbons. The room was the oldest part of the house, the only remaining portion of an earlier house: it was low and small: the fireplace had never been modernised: it stood wide open, with its dogs and its broad chimney: the window was of three narrow lights, one of which could be opened: all were still provided with the old diamond panes in their leaden setting. Armorel observed the muslin blind put up by Dorcas to keep out prying eyes. In dull and cloudy days the room would be gloomy. As it was, even with the bright sunshine out of doors, the air seemed cold and oppressive—perhaps from the fresh association of Death. Armorel shivered as she looked about her.

The greater part of the room was taken up by a large bed. In the old lady's time it had curtains and a head, and things at the four corners like the plumes of a hearse, but in faded crimson. Then it looked splendid. Now, the bed had been stripped: curtains and plumes and all were gone, and only the skeleton bed left, with its four great solid posts and its upper beams, and its feather bed lying exposed, with the bare pillow-cases upon the mattress. But the bedstead was magnificent without its trappings, because it was made of mahogany black with age: they no longer make such bedsteads. There was also a table—an old black table—with massive legs; but there was nothing on it.

Between door and wall there was a row of pegs, with a chair beneath them. Now, by some freak of chance, when Dorcas and Chessun hung up the ancient dame's things for the last time—her great bonnet, and the cap of many ribbons within it, and her silk dress—they arranged them so as to present a most extraordinary presentment of the venerable lady herself—much elongated and without any face: she seemed to be sitting in the chair below the pegs, dressed as usual, and nodding her great bonnet, but pulled out to eight or ten feet in length. Armorel caught the ghostly similitude and started, trembling. It seemed as if in a moment the wrinkled old face, with the hawk-like nose and the keen eyes, would come back to the bonnet and the cap. She was so much startled that she turned the bonnet round. And then the figure seemed watching with the shoulders. This was uncanny, but it was not so terrible as the faceless form.

Beside the fireplace was a cupboard—one of those huge cupboards which one only finds in the old houses. Armorel tried the door, but it was locked. Against the wall stood a chest of drawers, brass-bound, massive. She tried the handles, but every lock was fast. Under the window stood an old sea-chest. It was a very big sea-chest. One would judge, from its rich carvings and its ornamental ironwork, that it was probably the sea-chest of an admiral at least—perhaps that of Admiral Hernando Mureno, Armorel's ancestor, if such was his rank in the navy of his Catholic Majesty. The sight of this sea-chest caused the girl to shiver with the fear of expectation. Nobody contemplates the absolutely unknown without a certain fear. It contained, she was certain, the things that Dorcas had seen, of which she would not speak. The chest seemed to drag her: it cried, 'Open me. Look inside me—see what I have got to show you.'

Then she remembered, as one in a dream, hearing people talk. Words long forgotten came back to her. 'Twas in Hugh Town, whither she went across to school when she was as yet a little girl. 'What have the Roseveans'—thus and thus said the voice—'done with all their money? They've never spent anything: they've gone on saving and saving. Some day we shall find out what became of it.' Was she going to find out what had become of it?

The old lady, in her most lucid moments, had never dropped the least hint of any inheritance, except that disagreeable necessity of getting drowned on account of the unfortunate Robert Fletcher. And that was not an inheritance to gladden the heart. Yet there was an inheritance. It was here, in this room. And she was locked in alone, in order that she, herself unseen by any, might discover what it was.

Baron Bluebeard's last wife—she who afterwards, as a beautiful, rich, and lively young widow, set so many hearts aflame—was not more curious than Armorel. Nor was she, in the course of her investigations, more afraid than Armorel. The girl looked nervously about the room, so ghostly and so full of shadow. All old rooms have their ghosts, but some of them have so many that one is not afraid of them. There is a sense of companionship in a crowd of ghosts. This room had only one—that of the woman who had grown old in it—who had spent nearly eighty years in it. All the old ghosts had grown tired of this monotonous room, gone away and left the place to her. Armorel not only 'believed in ghosts'—many of us accord to these shadows a shadowy, theoretical belief—she actually knew that ghosts do sometimes appear. Dorcas had seen many—Chessun herself, while not going actually that length, threw out hints. She herself had often, too, gone to look for them. Now she glanced nervously where the 'things' were hanging, expecting to see the ancestral figure reappear, shoulders move, the bonnet and cap turn round, the old, old face within them, ready to warn, to admonish, and to guide. If this had happened, it would have seemed to Armorel nothing but what was natural and in the regular course of things looked for. But, outside, the sun shone on the white apple-blossom. No one is very much afraid of ghosts in the sunshine.

She encouraged herself with this reflection, and began with unlocking the chest of drawers. The lower drawers, when they were opened, contained nothing but the 'things' of her great-great-grandmother. Among them was a box roughly made—a boy's box made with a jack-knife: it contained a gold watch with a French name upon it—a very old watch, with a representation of the Annunciation in low relief on the gold face. There were also in the box two or three gold chains and sundry rings and trinkets. Armorel took them out and laid them on the table. They were, she said to herself, part of her inheritance. Was this the Great Surprise spoken of by Dorcas? She tried the two upper drawers. They were locked, but she easily found the right key, and opened them. She found that they were filled with lace; they were crammed with lace. There were packets of lace tied up tight, rolls of lace, cardboards with lace wound round and round—an immense quantity of lace was lying in these drawers. As for its value, Armorel knew nothing. Nor did she even ask herself what the value might be. She only unrolled one or two packets, and wondered vaguely what in the world she should do with so much lace. And she wished it was not so yellow. Yet the packets she unrolled contained Valenciennes—some of it half a yard wide, precious almost beyond price. Armorel knew, however, very well how it had got there, and what it meant. The descendant of so many brave runners was not ignorant that lace, velvet, silk and satin, brandy and claret, all came from the French coast with which her gallant forefathers were so familiar before the Preventive Service interfered. This, then, was left from the smuggling times. They had not sold all. They had kept enough, in fact, to stock half a dozen West-End shops, to adorn the trousseau of fifty Princesses. And here the stuff had lain undisturbed since—well, perhaps, since the unfortunate visit of Mr. Robert Fletcher.

'My inheritance, so far,' said Armorel, 'is a pile of yellow lace and a gold watch and chain and some trinkets. Is this the Great Surprise?' But she looked at the sea-chest. Something more must be there.

Next she turned to the cupboard. It was locked and double-locked. But she found the key. The cupboard was one of those great receptacles common in the oldest houses, almost rooms in themselves, but dark rooms, where mediÆval housekeepers kept their stores. In those days, housekeeping on a respectable scale meant the continual maintenance of immense stores. All the things which now we get from shops as we want them were then laid in store long before they were wanted. Outside the country town there were no shops; and, even in London itself, people did not run to the shop every day. The men had great quantities of shirts—three clean shirts a day was the allowance of a solid city man under good Queen Anne—a city man who respected himself: the women had a corresponding quantity of flowered petticoats. Wine was by no means the only thing laid down for future years. All these accumulations helped to give solidity to the appearance of life. When a woman thought of her cupboards filled with fine linen and a man of his cellars filled with wine, the uncertainty and brevity of life alleged by the Preacher seemed not to concern them. It would be absurd to lay down a great bin of good port if one was not going to live long enough to drink it. The fashion, therefore, has its advantages.

Armorel threw open the door and looked in. The place was so dark that she was obliged to light a candle in order to examine the shelves running round the sides of the cupboard. There was a strange smell in the place, which, perhaps, had not been opened for a long time. Bales of some kind lay upon the upper shelves. Armorel took down two and opened them. They contained silk—strong, rich silk. She rolled them up and put them back. On a lower shelf was a most singular collection. In the front row were one—two—no fewer than six punch-bowls, all of silver except one, and that was of silver gilt. This must be the Great Surprise. Armorel took them all out and placed them on the table. For the most part they showed signs of having been used with freedom—one has heard of an empty punch-bowl being kicked about the place as a conclusion to the feast. But six punch-bowls! 'They came,' said Armorel, 'from the wrecks.' Behind the punch-bowls were silver candlesticks, silver snuffers, silver cups, silver tankards—some with coats-of-arms, some with names engraven. There was also a great silver ship, one of those galleons in silver which formerly adorned Royal banquets. All these Armorel took out and arranged upon the table. Among them was a tall hour-glass mounted in silver. Armorel set the sand running again, after many years. On the floor there were packets and bundles tied up and rolled together. Armorel opened one of them, and, finding that it contained a packet of gold lace and a pair of gold epaulettes, she left them undisturbed. And standing against the wall, stacked behind the bundles of gold lace, were swords—dozens of swords. What could she do with swords? Well, then, now, at last, she had found the Great Surprise. But still the sea-chest seemed to drag her and to call to her: 'Open me! Open me! See what I have got for you!'

'So far, then,' she said, 'I have inherited a pile of lace; a gold watch, rings, and chains; six punch-bowls, twenty-four silver candlesticks, twelve silver cups, four great tankards, a silver ship, I know not how many old swords, and a bundle of gold lace. I wonder if these things make a person rich?'

If so, great wealth does not satisfy the soul. This was certain, because Armorel really felt no richer than before. Yet the array of punch-bowls was truly imposing, and the silver candlesticks, the snuffers, the tankards, the cups, and the ship, though they sadly wanted the brush and the chamois leather, with a pinch of 'whitenin',' were worthy of a College Plate-Room. One might surely feel a little elation at the thought of owning all this silver, even if one did not understand its intrinsic value. But, like the effect of champagne, such elation would quickly wear off.

Next, Armorel remembered the secret cupboard at the head of the bed. Her own bed had its secret recess at the head—every respectable bedstead used formerly to have them. Where else could money be hidden away safely? To be sure, everybody knew this hiding-place, but everybody pretended not to know. It was an open secret, like the concealed drawer in a schoolboy's desk. Our forefathers were full of such secrets that everybody knew. The stocking in the teapot: the receptacle under the hearthstone: the hidden compartment in the cabinet: the secret room: the secret staircase: the recess in the head of the bed—these were all secrets that everybody knew and everybody respected. I think that even the burglar respected these conventions. Armorel knew how to open the panel—she found the spring and it flew open, rustily, as if it had not been opened for a great many years. Behind the panel was a recess eighteen inches long and about nine inches deep. And here stood a Black Jack—nothing less than a Black Jack; a quart Jack, not a Leather Jack, but a tankard made of tin and painted with hunting scenes something like an Etruscan vase, or perhaps more like a Brown George. Why should anyone want to hide away a Black Jack? This quart pot, however, held something better than stingo—even stronger: it was half-filled with foreign money. Here were moidores, doubloons, ducats, pieces-of-eight, Louis d'ors, Spanish pillar dollars, sequins, gold coins from India—nothing at all in the pot less than a hundred years old. Armorel took out a handful and looked at them. Well, gold coins do look like money. She began to feel really rich. She had a quart tankard half-full of gold coins. She added the Black Jack to the other treasures on the table. All this foreign money must have come out of the wrecks. And, since it was all so old, out of wrecks that had happened before the memory even of the Ancient Lady. This, then, was perhaps the Great Surprise.

But there remained the sea-chest under the window, and again, when Armorel looked upon it, the chest continued to call to her, 'Open me! Open me! See what I have for you!'

Armorel found the key which unlocked it, and threw open the lid. Within, there was the deep tray which belongs to every sea-chest. This was filled with a quantity of uninteresting brown canvas bags. She wanted to see what was below, and tried to lift the tray, but it was too heavy. Then, still regarding the bags as of no account, she took one out. It was heavy, and when she lifted it there was a clink as of coin. It was tied tightly at the mouth with a piece of string. She opened it. Within there were gold coins. She took out a handful: they were all sovereigns, some of them worn, some quite new and fresh from the Mint. She poured out the whole contents of the bag on the table. Why, it was actually full of golden sovereigns. Nothing else in the bag. All golden sovereigns! And there were five hundred of them. She counted them. Five hundred pounds! She had never, it is true, thought much about money—but—five hundred pounds! It seemed an amazing sum. Five hundred pounds! And all in a single bag. And such a little bag as this. She put back the money and tied up the bag.

Then she took out another bag. This was as big as the first, and heavier. It was full of guineas—Armorel counted them. There were also five hundred of them. Some of them were so old that they bore the impression of the elephant, and therefore belonged to the seventeenth century. But most of them belonged to the eighteenth century, and bore the heads of the three first Georges. Five hundred guineas—and never before had Armorel seen a guinea! Well, she thought, that made a thousand pounds. She took up another bag and opened it. That, too, weighed as much and was full of gold. And another, and yet another. They were all full of gold. And now she knew what Dorcas meant—this—nothing but this—was the Great Surprise! Not the punch-bowls, or the lace, or the bales of silk, but these bags full of gold constituted her wealth. She understood money, you see: lace and silk were beyond her. This was her inheritance!

Consider: the Roseveans, from father to son, had been from time immemorial wreckers, smugglers, and pilots. They were also farmers. On their little farm they grew nearly enough to support their simple lives. They had pigs and poultry; they had milch cows; they had a few sheep; they kept geese, pigeons, ducks; they made their own beer and their own cordials and strong waters; they made their own linen; they were unto themselves millers, tinkers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, builders, and thatchers. They grew their own salads and vegetables, and if they wanted any fruit they grew that as well. Oats and barley they grew, clover and hay. I believe that on Samson wheat has never been grown—indeed, there are only eighty acres in all. There was left, therefore, little to buy. Coals, wood for fuel and for carpentering, things in iron, crockery, tools, cloth clothes, flannel, flour, and sometimes a little beef—what else did they want? As for fish, they had only to catch as much as they wanted. Tea, coffee, sugar, and so forth came in with later civilisation, when small ale, possets, and hypsy died out.

In order to provide these small deficiencies they were pilots, to begin with. This trade brought in a steady income. They also sent out boats, filled with fresh vegetables, to meet the homeward-bound East Indiamen. And they were also, like the rest of the artless islanders, wreckers and smugglers. In the former capacity they occasionally acquired an extraordinary quantity of odd and valuable things. In the latter profession they made at times, and until the Peace and the Preventive Service put an end to the business, a really fine income.

Then, on Samson, they continued to live after the patriarchal fashion and in the old simplicity. Each Captain Rosevean in turn was the chieftain or sheik. To him his family brought all that they earned or found. The sea-chest took it all. For three hundred years, at least, this sea-chest received everything and gave up nothing. Nobody ever took anything out of it: nobody looked into it: nobody knew, until Ursula counted the money and made bags for it, what there was in the chest. Nobody ever asked if they were rich or how rich they were.

There was no bank on Samson: there is not even now a bank in the Scilly archipelago at all: nobody understood any other way of saving money than the good old fashion of putting it by in a bag. On Samson there never were thieves, even when as many as fifty people lived on the island. Therefore the Captain Rosevean of the time, though he knew not how much was saved, nor did he ever inquire, laid the last additions to the pile in the tray of the old sea-chest with the rest, and, having locked it up, dropped the key in his pocket, and went about his business in perfect confidence, never thinking either that it might be stolen, or that he might count up his hoard, proceed to enjoy it, and alter his simple way of life. Every Captain Rosevean in succession added to that hoard every year; not one among them all thought of spending it or taking anything from it. He added to it. Nobody ever counted it until the reign of Ursula. It was she who made the little brown bags of canvas: she, usurping the place of Family Chief or Sheik, took from her sons and grandsons all the money that they made. They gave it over to her keeping—she was the Family Bank. And, like her predecessors in that room, she told no one of the hoard.

Most of the bags contained guineas of George I., George II., and George III., down to the year 1816, when the Mint left off coining guineas. A few contained sovereigns of later date; but the family savings since that year had been small and uncertain. The really fat time—the prosperous time—when the money poured in, was during the long war which lasted for nearly five-and-twenty years.

There were actually forty of these bags. Armorel laid them out upon the table and counted them. Forty! And each bag to all appearance, for she only counted two, contained five hundred guineas or pounds. Forty times five hundred—that makes twenty thousand pounds, if all were sovereigns! There are, I am told, a few young ladies in this country who have as much as twenty thousand pounds for their dot. There are also a great many young ladies in France, and an amazing multitude, whom no man may number, in the United States of America, who have as much. But I am quite sure that not one of these heiresses, except Armorel herself, has ever actually gazed upon her fortune in a concrete form—tangible—to be counted—to be weighed—to be admired. It is a pity that they cannot do this, if only because they would then see for themselves what a very small pile of gold a fortune of twenty thousand pounds actually makes. This would make them humble. Armorel stood looking at the table thus laden with bewildered eyes.

'I have got,' she murmured, 'twenty thousand sovereigns and guineas at least: I have got a painted pot full of old money. I have got six punch-bowls, a great silver ship, a large number of silver candlesticks and cups: I have got a silver-mounted hour-glass'—its sand was now nearly run—'I have got a great quantity of lace and silk. I suppose all this does make riches. Whatever shall I do with it? Shall I give it to the poor? or shall I put it back into the box and leave it there? But perhaps there is something else in the box.'

The chest, in fact, continued to call aloud to be examined. Even while Armorel looked at her glittering treasures spread out upon the table she felt herself drawn towards the chest. There was more in it. There was another Surprise waiting for her—even a greater Surprise, perhaps, than that of the bags of gold. 'Search me!' cried the chest. 'Search me! Look into the innermost recesses of me: explore my contents to the very bottom: let nothing escape your eyes.'

Armorel knelt down before the chest and took out the tray. It was empty now, and she could lift it easily.

Beneath the tray there was a most miscellaneous collection of things.

They lay in layers, separated and divided—Ursula's hand was here—by silk handkerchiefs of the good old kind—the bandanna, now gone out of fashion.

First Armorel took out and laid on the floor a layer of silver spoons, silver ladles, even silver dishes, all of antique appearance and for the most part stamped with a crest or a coat-of-arms: for in the old days if a man was Armiger he loved to place his shield on everything; to look at it and glory in it: to let others see it and envy it.

Then she found a layer of watches. There were gold watches and silver watches; the latter of all kinds, down to the veritable turnip. The glasses were broken of nearly all, and, if one had examined, the works would have been found rusted with the sea-water which had got in. What were they worth now? Perhaps the value of the cases and of the jewels with which the works were set, and more with one or two, where miniatures adorned the back and jewels were set in the face. Armorel turned with impatience from the watches to the gold chains, which lay beside them. There were yards of gold chain: gold chains of all kinds, from the heavy English make to the dainty interlaced Venetian and thread-like Trichinopoly; there were silver chains also—massive silver chains, made for some extinct office-bearer, perhaps bo's'n on the Admiral's ship of the Great Armada. Armorel drew up some of the chains and played with them, tying them round her wrists and letting them slip through her fingers—the pretty delicate things, which spoke of wealth almost as loudly as the bags of guineas.

She laid them aside, and took up a silk handkerchief containing a small collection of miniatures. They were almost all portraits of women: young and pretty women: ladies on land whose faces warmed the hearts and fired the memories of men at sea. The miniatures had hung round the necks of some and had lain in the sea-chests of others, whose bones had long since melted to nothing in the salt sea depths, while those of their mistresses had turned to dust beneath the aisle of some village church, their memory long since forgotten, and their very name trampled out by the feet of the rustics.

Armorel laid aside these pictures—they were very pretty, but she would look at them again another time.

The next parcel was a much larger one. It consisted of snuff-boxes. There were dozens of snuff-boxes: one or two of gold: one or two silver-gilt: some silver. In the lids of some were pictures, some most beautifully and delicately executed; some of subjects which Armorel did not understand—and why, she thought, should painters draw people without proper clothes? Venus and the Graces and the Nymphs, in whom our eighteenth-century ancestors took such huge delight, were to this young person merely people. The snuff-boxes were very well in their way, but Armorel had no inclination to look at them again.

Then she found in a handkerchief, the four corners of which were loosely tied together, a great quantity of rings. There were rings of every kind—the official ring or the ring of office, the signet-ring, the ring with the shield, the ring with the name of a ship, the ring with the name of a regiment, mourning-rings, wedding-rings, betrothal-rings, rings with posies, cramp-rings with the names of the Magi on them—but their power was gone—gimmal-rings, rings episcopal, rings barbaric, mediÆval, and modern, rings set with every kind of precious stone—there were hundreds of rings. All drowned sailors used to have rings on their fingers.

Armorel began to get tired of all these treasures. Beneath them, however, at the bottom of the box, lay piled together a mass of curios. They were stowed away for the most part in small boxes, of foreign make and appearance: ivory boxes: carved wood boxes. They consisted of all kinds of things, such as gold and silver buckles, brooches, painted fans, jewel-hilted daggers, crystal tubes of attar of roses, and knives of curious construction. The girl sighed: she would look over them at another time. They would, perhaps, add something to the inheritance, but for the moment she was satisfied. She had seen enough. She was putting back a dagger whose jewelled handle flashed in the unaccustomed light, when she saw, lying half hidden among this pile of curious things, the corner of a chagreen case. This attracted her curiosity, and she took it out. The chagreen had been green in colour, but was now very much discoloured. It had been fastened by a silver clasp, but this was broken: a small leather strap was attached to two corners. Armorel expected to find another bag of money. But this did not contain gold. It was lighter than the canvas bags. As she took it into her hands she remembered the bag of Robert Fletcher. Yes. The leathern strap of this case had been cut through. She held in her hands—she was certain—the abominable Thing that had brought so much trouble on the family. Again the room felt ghostly: she heard voices whispering: the voices of all those who had been drowned: the voices of the women who had mourned for them: the voice of the old lady who was herself a witness of the crime. They all whispered together in her ears: 'Armorel, you must find him. You must give it back to him.'

What was in it? The clasp acted no longer. Armorel lifted the overlapping leather and looked within. There was a thick roll of silk. She took this out. Wrapped up in the silk, laid in folds, side by side, were a quantity of stones—common-looking stones, such as one may pick up, she thought, on the beach of Porth Bay. There were a couple of hundred or more, mostly small stones, only one or two of them bigger than the top of Armorel's little finger.

'Only stones!' she cried. 'All this trouble about a bag full of red stones!'

Among the stones lay a small folded paper. Armorel opened it. The paper was discoloured by age or by water, and most of the writing was effaced. But she could read some of it.

'... from the King of Burmah himself. This ruby I estimate to be worth ... 000l. at the very least. The other ... Mines. The second largest stone weighs ... about 2,000l. The smaller ... rt Fletcher.'

It was a note on the contents of the parcel, written by the owner.

The stones, therefore, were rubies, uncut rubies. Armorel knew little about precious stones and jewels, but she had heard and read of them. The price of a virtuous woman, she knew, was far above rubies. And Solomon's fairest among women was made comely with rows of jewels. Queen Sheba, moreover, brought precious stones among her presents to the Wise King. The girl wondered why such common-looking objects as these should be precious. But she was humbly ignorant, and put that wonder by.

This, then, was nothing less than Robert Fletcher's fortune. He had this round his neck, and he was bringing it home to enjoy. And it was taken from him by her ancestor. A wicked thing indeed! A foul and wicked thing! And the poor man had been sent empty away to begin his life all over again. She shivered as she looked at them. All for the sake of these dull, red bits of stone! How can man so easily fall into temptation? In the empty room, so quiet, so ghostly, she heard again the whispers, 'Armorel, find him—find the man—and give him back his jewels.'

She replied aloud, not daring to look round her lest she should see the pale and eager faces of those who had suffered death by drowning in consequence of this sin, 'Yes—yes, I will find him! I will find him!'

She pushed the chagreen case back into its corner and covered it up. 'I will find him,' she repeated. Then she rose to her feet and looked about the room. Heavens! What a sight! The bags of gold, two of them open, their contents lying piled upon the table—the chains of gold on the floor—the handful of old gold coins lying on the table beside the Black Jack, the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, the punch-bowls, the rings, the silver cups—the low room, dark and quiet, filled with ghosts and voices, the recent occupant wagging her shoulders and shaking the back of her bonnet at her from the opposite wall, and, through the open window, the sight of the sunlight on the apple-blossoms mocking the gold and silver in this gloomy cave. She comprehended, as yet, little of the extent of her good fortune. Lace and silk, rings and miniatures, snuff-boxes: all these things had no value to her—of buying and selling she had no kind of experience. All she understood was that she was the possessor of a vast quantity of things for which she could find no possible use—one jewelled dagger, for instance, might be used for a dinner-knife, or for a paper-knife; but what could she do with a dozen? In addition to this museum of pretty and useless things she had forty bags with five hundred guineas, or pounds, in each—twenty-one thousand pounds, say, in cash. This museum was perfectly unique: no family in Great Britain had such a collection. It had been growing for more than three hundred years: it was begun in the time of the Tudor Kings, at least, perhaps even earlier. Wrecks there were, and Roseveans, on Samson, before the seventh Henry. I doubt if any other family, even the oldest and the noblest, has been collecting so long. Certainly no other family, even in this archipelago of wrecks, can have had such opportunities of collecting with such difficulties in dissipating. For more than three hundred years! And Armorel was sole heiress!

She understood that she had inherited something more than twenty thousand pounds—how much more, she knew not. Now, unless one knows something of the capacities of one single pound, one cannot arrive at the possibilities of twenty thousand pounds. Armorel knew as much as this. Tea at Hugh Town costs two shillings a pound—perhaps two-and-four—sugar threepence a pound: nun's cloth so much a yard—serge and flannel so much: coals, so much a ton: wood for fuel, so much. This was nearly the extent of her knowledge: and it must be confessed that it goes very little way towards a right comprehension of twenty thousand pounds.

Once, again, she had heard Justinian talking of the flower-farm. 'It has made,' he said, 'four hundred pounds this year, clear.' To which Dorcas replied, 'And the housekeeping doesn't come to half that, nor near it.' Whence, by the new light of this Great Surprise, she concluded, first, that the other two hundred, thus made, must have been added to those money-bags, and, next, that two hundred pounds a year would be a liberal allowance for her whole yearly expenditure. Then she made a little calculation. Two hundred pounds a year—two hundred into twenty thousand—twenty thousand—two and four noughts—she put five bags in a row for the number—subtract two—she did so—there remained three—divide by two—she did so—one hundred years was the result of that sum. Her twenty thousand pounds would therefore last her exactly one hundred years. At the expiration of the century all would be gone. For the first time in her life Armorel comprehended the fleeting nature of riches. And, naturally, the discovery, though she shivered at the thought of losing all, made her feel a little proud. A strange result of wealth, to advance the inheritor one more step in the knowledge of possible misery! She was like unto the curious youth who opens a book of medicine, only to learn of new diseases and terrible sufferings and alarming symptoms, and to imagine these in his own body of corruption. In a hundred years there would be no more. She would then be reduced to sell the lace and the other things for what they would then be worth. There would still, however, remain the flower-farm. She would, after all, be no worse off than before the Great Surprise. And then there sprang up in her heart the blossom of another thought, to be developed, later on, into a lovely flower.

She had risen from her knees now, and was standing beside the table, vaguely gazing upon her inheritance. It was all before her. So the Ancient Lady had stood many and many a time counting the money: looking to see if all was safe: content to count it and to know that it was there. The old lady was gone, but from the opposite wall her shoulders and the back of her bonnet were looking on.

Well: Armorel might go on doing exactly the same. She might live as her forefathers had lived: there was the flower-farm to provide all their necessities: if it brought in four hundred pounds a year, she could add two hundred to the heap—in every two years and a half another bag of five hundred sovereigns. All her people had done this—why not she? It seemed expected of her; a plain duty laid upon her shoulders. If she were to live on for eighty years longer—which would bring her to her great-great-grandmother's age—she would save eighty times two hundred—sixteen thousand pounds. The inheritance would then be worth thirty-six thousand pounds—a prodigious sum of money indeed. And, besides, the Black Jack, with its foreign gold, and the rings and lace and things!

A strange room it was this morning. What voice was it that whispered solemnly in her ear, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal'?

Never before had this injunction possessed any other significance to her than belongs to one manifestly addressed to other people. The Bible is full of warnings addressed to other people. Armorel was like the Royal Duke who used to murmur during the weekly utterance of the Commandments, 'Never did that. Never did that.' Now, this precept was clearly and from the very first intended to meet her own case. Oh! To live for nothing than to add more bags to that tray in the great sea-chest!

Roland had prophesied that there would be a change. It had come already in part, and more was coming.

What next? As yet the girl did not understand that she was mistress of her own fate. Hitherto things had been done for her. She was now about to act for herself. But how? If Roland were only here! But he had only written once, and he had never kept his promise to write back again to Samson. If he were here he could advise.

She looked around, and saw the heaps of things that were all hers, and she laughed. The girl whom Roland thought to be only an ignorant and poor little country girl, a flower-farmer's girl of Samson Island, living alone with her old grandmother and the serving-folk, was ignorant still, no doubt. But she was not poor: she was rich—she could have all that can be bought with money—she was rich. What would Roland say and think? And she laughed aloud.

She was rich—the last girl in the world to hope, or expect, or desire riches. Thus Fate mocks us, giving to one, who wants it not, wealth: and to another, who knows not how to use it, youth: and to a third, insensible of its power, beauty. The young lady of society, she whom the good old hymns used to call the Worldling—fond and pretty title! there are no Worldlings now—would have had no difficulty in knowing how to use this wonderful windfall. She, indeed, is always longing, perhaps praying, for money: she is always thinking how delightful it would be to be rich, and how there is nothing in the whole world more desirable than much fine gold. But to Lady Worldling, poor thing! such a windfall never happens. Again, there are all the distressed gentlewomen, the unappreciated artists, the authors whose books won't sell, the lawyers who have no clients, the wives whose name is Quiverful, the tradesman who 'scapes the Bankruptcy Court year after year by the skin of his teeth, and the poor dear young man who pines away because he cannot join the rabble rout of Comus—why, why does not such a windfall ever come to any of these? It never does: yet they spend all their spare time—all the time when they ought to be planning and devising ways and means of advancement—in dreaming of the golden days they would enjoy, if only such a windfall fell to them. One such man I knew: he dreamed of wealth all his life: he tried to become rich by taking every year a share in a foreign lottery. Of course, he never won a prize. While he was yet young and even far down the shady or outer slope of middle age he continually built castles in the air, fashioning pleasant ways for himself when he should get that prize. When he grew old, he dreamed of the will he would make and of the envy with which other old men, when he was gone, should regard the memory of one who had cut up so well. So he died poor; but I think he had always, through his dreaming, been as happy as if he had been rich.

Armorel told herself, standing in the midst of this great treasure, that she was rich. Roland had once told her, she remembered, that an artist ought to have money in order to be free: only in freedom, he said, could a man make the best of himself. What was good for an artist might be good for her. At the same time—it is not for nothing that a girl reads and ponders over the Gospels—there were terrible words of warning—there were instances. She shuddered, overwhelmed with the prospects of new dangers.

She knew everything: the room had yielded all its secrets there were no more cupboards, boxes, or drawers. The sight of the treasures already began to pall upon her. She applied herself to putting everything back. First the chagreen case. This she laid carefully in its corner among the daggers and pistols, remembering that she had promised to find the owner. How should she do that if she remained on Samson? Then she put back the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, and the watches in their silk handkerchiefs: then the box of rings and the silver spoons and dishes. Then she put the tray in its place and laid the bags in the tray, and locked the old sea-chest. This done, she bore back to the shelves in the cupboard the punch-bowls, candlesticks, tankards, and the big silver ship: she locked and double-locked the cupboard-door: she crammed the lace into the drawers, and put back the box of trinkets.

Then she dropped the keys in her pocket. Oh! what a lump to carry about all day long! But the weight of the keys in her pocket was nothing to the weight that was laid upon her shoulders by her great possessions. This, however, she hardly felt at first.

Everything was her own.

When the new King comes to the throne he makes a great clearance of all the personal belongings of the old King. He gives away his cloaks and his uniforms, and all the things belonging to the daily life of his predecessor. That is always done. Therefore, Queen Armorel—Vivat Regina!—at this point gathered together all her predecessor's belongings. She turned them out of the drawers and laid them on the floor—with the great bonnet and the wonderful cap of ribbons. And then she opened the door. She would give these things to Dorcas. Her great-great-grandmother should have no more authority there. Even her clothes must go. If her ghost should remain, it should be without the bonnet and the cap.

She called Dorcas, who came, curious to know how her young mistress took the Great Surprise. Armorel had taken it, apparently, as a matter of course. So the new King stands upon the highest step of the Throne, calm and collected, as if he had been prepared for this event, and was expecting it day after day.

'You know all now, dearie?' she whispered, shutting the door carefully. 'Did you find everything?'

'Yes—I believe I found everything.'

'The silver in the cupboard: the lace: the bags of gold?'

'I think I have found everything, Dorcas.'

'Then you are rich, my dear. No Rosevean before you was ever half so rich. For none of it has been spent. They've all gone on saving and adding—almost to the last she saved and added. Oh! the last thing she lost was the love of saving, and the jealousy of her keys she never lost. Oh! you are very rich—you are the richest girl in the whole of Scilly—not even in St. Mary's is there anyone who can compare with you. Even the Lord Proprietor himself—I hardly know.'

'Yes. I believe I must be very rich,' said Armorel. 'Dorcas, you kept her secret. Keep mine as well. Let no one know.'

'No one shall know, dearie—no one. But lock the door. Keep the door locked always.'

'I will. Now, Dorcas, here are all her dresses and things. You must take them all away and keep them. They are for you.'

'Very well, dearie. Though how I'm to wear black silk—— Oh! Child,' she cried, out of the religious terrors of her soul—'it is written that it is harder for a rich man to enter into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. My dear, if these great riches are to drag your soul down into hell, it would be better if they were all thrown into the sea, the silver punch-bowls and the bags of gold and all. But there's one comfort. It doesn't say, impossible. It only says, harder. So that now and then, perhaps, a rich man may wriggle in—just one—and oh! I wish, seeing the number of rich people there are in the world, that there'd been shown one camel—only a single camel—going through the needle's eye. Think what a miracle! 'Twould have brought conviction to all who saw it, and consolation ever afterwards to all who considered it—oh! the many thousands of afflicted souls who are born rich! You are not the only one, child, who is rich through no fault of her own. Often have I told Justinian, thinking of her, and he not knowing or suspecting, but believing I was talking silly, that, considering the warnings and woes pronounced against the rich, we cannot be too thankful. But don't despair, my dear—it is nowhere said to be impossible. And there's the rich young man, to be sure, who was told to sell all that he had and to give to the poor. He went away sorrowful. You can't do that, Armorel, because there are no poor on Samson. And it's said, "Woe unto you that are rich, for you have had your consolation!" Well, but if your money never is your consolation—and I'm sure I don't know what it is going to console you for—that doesn't apply to you, does it? There's the story of the Rich Man, again; and there's texts upon texts, when you come to think of them. You will remember them, child, and they will be your warnings. Besides, you are not going to waste and riot like a Prodigal Son, and where your earthly treasure is there you will not set your heart. You will go on like all the Roseveans before you: and though the treasure is kept locked up, you will add to it every year out of your savings, just as they did.'

'There is another parable, Dorcas. I think I ought to remember that as well. It is that of the Talents. If the man who was rich with Five Talents had locked them up, he would not have been called a good and faithful servant.'

'Yes, dearie, yes. You will find some Scripture to comfort and assure your soul, no doubt. There's a good deal in Scripture. Something for all sorts, as they say. Though, after all, riches is a dangerous thing. Child! if they knew it over at St. Mary's, not a young man in the place but would be sailing over to Samson to try his luck. Our secret, child, all to ourselves.'

'Yes; our secret, Dorcas. And now take away all these things, everything that belonged to her: there are her shoes—take them too. I want the room to be all my own. So.'

When all the things were gone, Armorel closed and locked the door. Then she ran out of the house gasping, for she choked. Everything was turned into gold. She gasped and choked and ran out over the hill and down the steps and across the narrow plain, and up the northern hill, hoping to drive some of the ghosts from her brain, and to shake off some of the bewildering caused by the Great Surprise. But a good deal remained, and especially the religious terrors suggested by that pious Bryanite Christian and Divider of the Word, Dorcas Tryeth.

When she sat down in the old place upon the carn, the great gulf between herself and Bryher island reminded her of that great gulf in the parable. How if she should be the Rich Man sitting for ever and for ever on the red-hot rock, tormented with pain and thirst—and how if on Samson Hill beyond she should see Abraham himself, the patriarch, with Lazarus lying at his feet—as yet she had developed no Lazarus—but who knows the future? The Rich Man must have been a thoughtless and selfish person. Until now the parable never interested her at all: why should it? She had no money.

The other passages, those which Dorcas had kindly quoted in this her first hour of wealth, came crowding into her mind, and told her they were come to stay. All these texts she had previously classed with the denunciations of sins the very meaning of which she knew not. She had no concern with such wickedness. Nor could she possibly understand how it was that people, when they actually knew that they must not do such things, still went on doing them. Now, however, having become rich herself, all the warnings of the New Testament seemed directed against herself. Already, the load of wealth was beginning to weigh upon her young shoulders.

She changed the current of her thoughts. Even the richest girl cannot be always thinking about woes and warnings. Else she would do nothing, good or bad. She began to think about the outer world. She had been thinking of it constantly ever since Roland left her. Now, as she looked across the broad Roadstead, and remembered that thirty miles beyond Telegraph Hill rose the cliffs where the outer world begins—they can be seen in a clear day—a longing, passionate and irresistible, seized her. She could go away now, whenever she pleased. She could visit the outer world and make the acquaintance of the people who live in it.

She laughed, thinking how Justinian, who had never been beyond St. Mary's, pictured, as he was fond of doing, the outer world. The Sea of Tiberias was to him the Road: the Jordan was like Grinsey Sound: the steep place down which the swine fell into the sea was like Shipman's Head: the Sermon on the Mount took place on just such a spot as the carn of the North Hill on Samson, with the sun shining on the Western Islands: the New Jerusalem in his mind was a city like Hugh Town, consisting of one long street with stone houses, roofed with slate; each house two storeys high, a door in the middle, and one window on each side. On the north side of the New Jerusalem was the harbour, with the ships, the sea-shore, and the open sea beyond: on the south side was a bay with beaches of white sand and black rocks at the entrance, exactly like Porth Cressa. And it was a quiet town, with seldom any noise of wheels, and always the sound of the sea lapping on either hand, north or south.

Now, there was nothing to keep her: she could go to visit the outer world whenever she pleased—if only she knew how. A girl of sixteen can hardly go forth into the wide, wide world all alone, announcing to the four corners her desire to make the acquaintance of everybody and to understand anything.

And then she began to remember her teacher's last instructions. The perfect girl was one who had trained her eye and her hand: she could play one instrument well: she understood music: she understood art: she was always gracious, sympathetic, and encouraging: she knew how to get their best out of men: she was always beautifully dressed: she had the sweetest and the most beautiful manners.

And here she blushed crimson, and then turned pale, and felt a pang as if a knife had pierced her very heart. For a dreadful thought struck her. She thought she understood at last the true reason why Roland never came back, though he promised, and looked so serious when he promised.

Why? why? Because she was so ill-mannered. Of course that was the reason. Why did Roland speak so strongly about the perfect girl's gracious and sympathetic manners, unless to make her understand, in this kindly and thoughtful way, how much was wanting in herself? Of course, he only looked upon her as a common country girl, who knew nothing, and would never learn anything. He wanted her to understand that—to feel that she would never rise to higher levels. He drew this picture of the perfect girl to make and keep her humble. Nay, but now she had this money—all this wealth—now—now—— She sprang to her feet and threw out her arms, the gesture that she had learned I know not where. 'Oh!' she cried, 'it is the gift of the Five Talents! I am not the rich young man. I have not received these riches for my consolation. They are my Five Talents. I will go away and learn—I will learn. I will become the perfect girl. I will train eye and hand. I will grow—grow—grow—to my full height. That will be true work in the service of the Giver of those Talents. I shall become a good and faithful servant when I have risen to the stature that is possible for me!'