"I am going out for a long walk, father; it is such a bright, sunshiny day. Good-by for the present."

Mr. Leeson did not hear; he again bent over the letter which he was writing. Sylvia ran back to Jasper.

"He seems quite well," she said, "and very much interested in what the post brought him this morning. I think I can leave him quite safely. You will be sure to see that he has his food."

"Bless you, child!-yes."

"And you will on no account betray that you live here?"

"Bless you, child! again-not I."

"Well then, I will get into my finery. How grand and important I shall feel!"

So Sylvia was dressed in the brown costume and the pretty brown velvet hat, and she wore a little sable collar and a sable m.u.f.f; and then she kissed Jasper, and telling her she would remember all the messages, started on her day of pleasure. Jasper saw her out by the back entrance.

This entrance had been securely closed before Jasper's advent, but between them the woman and the girl had managed to open the rusty gate, although Mr. Leeson was unaware that it had moved on its hinges for many a long day. It opened now to admit of Sylvia's exit, and Jasper went slowly back to the house, meditating as she did so. Whatever her meditations were, they roused her to action. She engaged herself busily in her bedroom and kitchen. She opened her trunk and took out a small bag which contained her money. She had plenty of money, still, but it would not last always. Without Sylvia's knowing it, she had often spent more than a pound a week on this establishment. It had been absolutely necessary for her to provide herself with warm bedclothes, and to add to the store of coals by purchasing anthracite coal, which is almost smokeless. In one way or another her h.o.a.rd was diminished by twenty pounds; she had therefore only forty more. When this sum was spent she would be penniless.

"Not that I am afraid," thought Jasper, "for Evelyn will have to give me more money-she must. I could not leave my dear little Sylvia now that I find the dreadful plight she is in; and I cannot stay far from my dear Evelyn, for although she does not love me as I love her, still, I should suffer great pain if I could not be, so to speak, within call. I wonder if my plan will succeed. I must have a try."

Jasper, having fulfilled her small duties, sat for a time gazing straight before her. The hours went on. The little carriage clock which she kept in her bedroom struck eleven, then twelve.

"Time for him to have something," thought Jasper. "Now, can I possibly manage? Yes, I think so."

She took a saucepan, which held something mysterious, out into the open air. It was an old, shabby saucepan. She hid it in the shrubbery. She then went back to her room and changed her dress. She was some little time over her toilet, and when she once more emerged into view, the old Jasper, to all appearance, had vanished.

A dark, somewhat handsome woman, in a faded red gipsy cloak, now stood before the looking-gla.s.s. Jasper slipped out the back way, pushed aside the rusty gate, said a friendly word to Pilot, who wagged his tail with approbation, and carrying a basket on her arm, walked slowly down the road. She met one or two people, and accosted them in the true Romany style.

"May I tell your fortune, my pretty miss? May I cross your hand with silver and tell you of the fine gentleman who is going to ride by presently? Let me, my dear-let me."

And when the young girl she addressed ran away giggling, little suspecting that Jasper was not a real gipsy, Jasper knew that her scheme had succeeded. She even induced a village boy to submit to her fortune-telling, and half-turned his head by telling him of a treasure to be found, and a wife in an upper cla.s.s who would raise him once for all to a position of luxury. She presently pounded loudly on The Priory gates. Mr. Leeson had an acute ear; he always sat within view of these gates. His one desire was to keep all strangers from the premises; he had trained Pilot for the purpose. Accordingly Jasper's knocks were not heeded. Sylvia was always desired to go to the village to get the necessary food; trades-people were not allowed on the premises. His letter occupied him intently; he was busy, too, looking over files of accounts and different prospectuses; he was engaged over that most fascinating pastime, counting up his riches. But, ah! ah! how poor he was! Oh, what a poverty-stricken man! He sighed and grumbled as he thought over these things. Jasper gave another furious knock, and finding that no attention was paid to her imperious summons, she pushed open the gate. Pilot immediately, as his custom was, appeared on guard.

He stood in front of Jasper and just for a moment barked at her, but she gave him a mysterious sign, and he wagged his tail gently, went up to her, and let her pat him on the head. The next instant, to Mr. Leeson's disgust, the gipsy and the dog were walking side by side up to the door.

He sprang to his feet, and in a moment was standing on the steps.

"Go away, my good woman; go away at once. I cannot have you on the premises. I will set the dog on you if you don't go away."

"One minute, kind sir," whined Jasper. "I have come to know if you have any fowls to sell. I want some fowls; old hens and c.o.c.ks-not young pullets or anything of that sort. I want to buy them, sir, and I am prepared to give a good price."

These extraordinary remarks aroused Mr. Leeson's thoughtful attention.

He had long been annoyed by the barn-door fowls, and they were decidedly old. He had often wished to dispose of them; they were too tough to eat, and they no longer laid eggs.

"If you will promise to take the fowls right away with you now, I do not mind selling them for a good price," he said. "Are you prepared to give a good price? I wonder where my daughter is; she would know better than I what they are worth. Stand where you are, my good woman; do not attempt to move or the dog Pilot will fly at your throat. I will call my daughter."

Mr. Leeson went into the house and shouted for Sylvia. Of course there was no answer.

"I forgot," muttered Mr. Leeson. "Sylvia is out. Really that child over-exercises; such devotion to the open air must provoke unnecessary appet.i.te. I wish that horrid gipsy would go away! How extraordinary that Pilot did not fly at her! But they say gipsies have great power over men and animals. Well, if she does give a fair price for the birds I may as well be quit of them; they annoy me a good deal, and some time, in consequence of them, some one may discover my treasure. Good heavens, how awful! The thought almost unmans me."

Mr. Leeson therefore came out and spoke in quite a civil tone for him.

"If you will accompany me to the fowl-house I will show you the birds, but I may as well say at once that I won't give them for a mere nothing, old as they are-and I should be the last to deceive you as to their age.

They are of a rare kind, and interesting from a scientific point of view."

"I do not know about scientific fowls," replied the gipsy, "but I want to buy a few old hens to put into my pot."

"Eh?" cried Mr. Leeson in a tone of interrogation. "Have you a recipe for boiling down old fowls?"

"Have not I, your honor! And soon they are done, too-in a jiffy, so to speak. But let me look at them, your honor, and I will pay you far more than any one else would give for them."

"You won't get them unless you give a very good sum. You gipsies, if the truth were known, are all enormously rich."

He walked round to the hen-house, accompanied by the supposed gipsy and Pilot. The fowls, about a dozen in number, were strutting up and down their run. They were hungry, poor creatures, for they had had but a slight meal that morning. The gipsy pretended to bargain for them, keeping a sharp eye all the time on Mr. Leeson.

"This one," she said, catching the most disreputable-looking of the birds, "is the one I want for the gipsies' stew. There, I will give you ninepence for this bird."

"Ninepence!" cried Mr. Leeson, almost shrieking out the word. "Do you think I would sell a valuable hen like that for ninepence? And you say it can be boiled down to eat tender!"

"Boiled down to eat tender!" said the supposed gipsy. "Why, it can be made delicious. There is broth in it, soup in it, and meat in it. There is dinner for four, and supper for four, and soup for four in this old hen!"

"And you offer me ninepence for such a valuable bird! I tell you what: I wish you would show me that recipe. I will give you sixpence for it. I do not know how to make an old hen tender."

"Give me a quarter of an hour, your honor, and you will not know that you are not eating the youngest chicken in the land."

"But how are you to cook it?"

"I will make a bit of fire in the shrubbery, and do it by a recipe of my own."

"You are sure you will not go near the house?"

"No, your honor."

"But how can a fowl that is now alive be fit to eat in a quarter of an hour?"

"It is a recipe of my grandmother's, your honor, and I am not going to give it until you taste what the bird is like. Now, if you will go away I will get it ready for you."

Mr. Leeson really felt interested.

"What a sensible woman!" he said to himself. "I shall try and get that recipe out of her for threepence; it will be valuable for my little book of cheap recipes; it would probably sell the book. How to make four dinners, four lunches, and four plates of soup out of an old hen. A most taking recipe-most taking!"

He walked up and down while the pretended gipsy heated up the stew she had already made out of a really tender chicken. The poor old hen was tied up so that she could not cackle or make any sound, and put into the bottom of the supposed gipsy's basket; and presently Jasper appeared carrying the stew in a cracked basin.

"Here, your honor, eat it up before me, and tell me afterwards if a better or a more tender fowl ever existed."

It was in this way that Mr. Leeson made an excellent repast. He was highly pleased, for decidedly the boniest and most scraggy of the fowls had been selected, and nothing could be more delicious than this stew.

He fetched a plate and knife and fork from his sitting-room, where he always kept a certain amount of useful kitchen utensils, ate his dinner, p.r.o.nounced it to be the best of the best, and desired the gipsy to leave the balance in the porch.

"Thank you," he said; "it is admirable. And so you really made that out of my old hen in a few minutes? I will give you threepence if you will give me the recipe."

"I could not sell it for threepence, sir-no, not for sixpence; no, not for a shilling. But I should like to make a bargain for the rest of the fowls."

"How much will you give for each?"