“I 'd like to go down to the store this mornin', Miss Withers, plase. Sure I've niver a shoe to my fut, only jist these two that I've got on, an' one other pair, and thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin' in 'em I'm outside of 'em intirely.”

“You can go, Kitty,” Miss Silence answered, funereally.

Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in her most tidy apparel, including a pair of shoes not exactly answering to her description, and set out straight for the house of the Widow Hopkins. Arrived at that respectable mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and was informed that he was at home. Had a message for him,—could she see him in his study? She could if she would wait a little while. Mr. Gridley was busy just at this minute. Sit down, Kitty, and warm yourself at the cooking-stove.

Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer, and presently began orienting herself, and getting ready to make herself agreeable. The kindhearted Mrs. Hopkins had gathered about her several other pensioners besides the twins. These two little people, it may be here mentioned, were just taking a morning airing in charge of Susan Posey, who strolled along in company with Gifted Hopkins on his way to the store.

Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments so natural to her good-humored race. “It's a little blarney that'll jist suit th' old lady,” she said to herself, as she made her first conciliatory advance.

“An' sure an' it's a beautiful kitten you've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An' it's a splendid mouser she is, I'll be bound. Does n't she look as if she'd clans the house out o'them little bastes, bad luck to em.”

Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than middle-aged tabby, slumbering as if she had never known an enemy, and turned smiling to Mistress Kitty. “Why, bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't know a mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse, I'd as lieves have a nest in one of that old cat's ears as anywhere else. You couldn't find a safer place for one.”

“Indade, an' to be sure she's too big an' too handsome a pussy to be after wastin' her time on them little bastes. It's that little tarrier dog of yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that will be after worryin' the mice an' the rats, an' the thaves too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fust-rate-lookin' watch-dog, an' a rig'ler rat-hound?”

Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little short-legged and short-winded animal of miscellaneous extraction with an expression of contempt and affection, mingled about half and half. “Worry 'em! If they wanted to sleep, I rather guess he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for 'em, nary a mouse nor rat would board free gratis in my house as they do now. Noisy little good-for-nothing tike,—ain't you, Fret?”

Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There was another chance, however, to make her point, which she presently availed herself of,—feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect a lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark, but awkward with a stranger. “That 's a beautiful part y 've got there,” Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; “and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!”

She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected, “squawked,” as our phonetic language has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it back with a jerk.

“An' is that the way your part tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?”

“Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot hasn't said a word this ten year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we first had him, but he found it was easier to squawk, and that's all he ever does nowadays,—except bite once in a while.”

“Well, an' to be sure,” Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her defeats, “if you'll kape a cat that does n't know a mouse when she sees it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a part that only squawks an' bites an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted woman that's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic, the Holy Father 'd make a saint of ye in less than no time!”

So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of her three successive discomfitures.

“You may come up now, Kitty,” said Mr. Gridley over the stairs. He had just finished and sealed a letter.

“Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does our young lady seem to be of late?”

“Whisht! whisht! your honor.”

Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive listener. She opened every door in the room, “by your lave,” as she said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old stovepipe hole or other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the pose of Mignon aspirant au ciel, as rendered by Carlo Dolce Scheffer.

Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley, who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that part of her costume at home.—Automatic movements, curious.

Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself as the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way, that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has been already told.

“He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An' so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral days, or perhaps longer, says he, an' you'd better kape it, says he.”

“Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?” said Mr. Gridley, who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant to follow it. He was getting impatient with the “says he's” with which Kitty double-leaded her discourse.

“An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd better kape it, says he, mixed up with your other paupers, says he,” (Mr. Gridley started,) “an' thin we can find it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. An' if it all goes right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before we shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for we're both in the same boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says he, an' I knows what you knows, says be. And thin he taks a stack o' paupers out of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to her, says he, that's the pauper, says he, an' if you die, says be, niver lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it's life an' dith to both of us, says he. An' thin he asks her if she has n't got one o' them paupers—what is 't they cahls 'em?—divilops, or some sich kind of a name—that they wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't got none that's big enough to hold it. So he says, give me a shate o' pauper, says he. An' thin he takes the pauper that she give him, an' he folds it up like one o' them—divilops, if that's the name of 'em; and thin he pulls a stick o' salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the pauper an' puts it into th' other pauper, along with the rest of the paupers, an' thin he folds th' other pauper over the paupers, and thin he lights a candle, an' he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up the pauper that was outside th' other paupers, an' he writes on the back of the pauper, an' thin he hands it to Miss Badlam.”

“Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with the others, Kitty?”

“I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it's the truth I'm tellin' ye.”

“Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty?”

“I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a pauper, and there was some blotches of ink on the back of it,—an' they looked like a face without any mouth, for, says I, there's two spots for the eyes, says I, and there's a spot for the nose, says I, and there's niver a spot for the mouth, says I.”

This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that the paper described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man conceal in the Corpus Juris Civilis, it was impossible to doubt. If it had been a single spot an the back of it, or two, he might have doubted. But three large spots “blotches” she had called them, disposed thus *.* —would not have happened to be on two different papers, in all human probability.

After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,—that Miss Cynthia Badlam was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and meant to be used for some unfair purpose. And most assuredly, Master Gridley said to himself, he held a master-key, which, just so certainly as he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the keeping of Miss Cynthia Badlam.

He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that lady at The Poplars. He meant to go thoroughly armed, for he was a very provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind which a housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar nature.

Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written upon it. “I think this will fetch the document,” he said to himself, “if it comes to the worst. Not if I can help it,—not if I can help it. But if I cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to this. Poor woman!—Poor woman!”

Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal volatile, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation and afflux of clamorous womanhood.

So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence, grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The Poplars.