"I am afraid of the very walls hearing
me."

"What nonsense! Come! whisper it to
me."

She looked all round her distrustfully, and
then whispered into the old man's ear. He
listened eagerly, and laughed when she was
silent again. "Bah!" he cried. "If that
is all, make yourself happy. As you wicked
English people say, it is as easy as lying.
Why, my child, you can burst him open for
yourself!"

"Burst it open? How?"

Uncle Joseph went to the window-seat,
which was made on the old-fashioned plan,
to serve the purpose of a chest as well as a
seat. He opened the lid, searched among
some tools which lay in the receptacle
beneath, and took out a chisel. "See," he said,
demonstrating on the top of the window-seat
the use to which the tool was to be put.
"You push him in so—crick! Then you
pull him up so—crack! It is the business
of one little moment—crick! crack!—and
the lock is done for. Take the chisel yourself,
wrap him up in a bit of that stout paper
there, and put him in your pocket. What
are you waiting for? Do you want me to
show you again, or do you think you can
do it now for yourself?"

"I should like you to show me again, Uncle
Joseph, but not now—not till we have got
to the end of our journey."

"Good. Then I may finish my packing-up,
and go ask about the coach. First and
foremost, Mozart must put on his great coat, and
travel with us." He took up the musical
box, and placed it carefully in a leather case,
which he slung by a strap over one shoulder.
"Next, there is my pipe, the tobacco to feed
him with, and the matches to set him alight.
Last, here is my old German knapsack, which
I pack last night. See! here is shirt, nightcap,
comb, pocket-handkerchief, sock. Say
I am an emperor, and what do I want more
than that? Good. I have Mozart, I have
the pipe, I have the knapsack, I have—stop!
stop! there is the old leather purse; he must
not be forgotten. Look! here he is. Listen!
Ting, ting, ting! He jingles; he has in his
inside, money. Aha, my friend, my good
Leather, you shall be lighter and leaner
before you come home again. So, so—it is
all complete; we are ready for the march
now, from our tops to our toes. Good-bye,
Sarah, my child, for a little half-hour; you
shall wait here and amuse yourself while I
go ask for the coach."

When Uncle Joseph came back, he brought
his niece information that a coach would
pass through Truro in an hour's time, which
would set them down at a stage not more
than five or six miles distant from the regular
post-town of Porthgenna. The only direct
conveyance to the post-town was a
night-coach which carried the letter-bags, and
which stopped to change horses at Truro at
the very inconvenient hour of two o'clock in
the morning. Being of opinion that to travel
at bed-time was to make a toil of a pleasure,
Uncle Joseph recommended taking places in
the day-coach, and hiring any conveyance
that could be afterwards obtained to carry
his niece and himself on to the post-town.
By this arrangement they would not only
secure their own comfort, but gain the
additional advantage of losing as little time as
possible at Truro before proceeding on their
journey to Porthgenna.

The plan thus proposed, was the plan
followed. When the coach stopped to change
horses, Uncle Joseph and his niece were
waiting to take their places by it. They found
all the inside seats but one disengaged, were
set down two hours afterwards at the stage
that was nearest to the destination for which
they were bound, hired a pony-chaise there,
and reached the post-town between one and
two o'clock in the afternoon.

Dismissing their conveyance at the inn,
from motives of caution which were urged
by Sarah, they set forth to walk across the
moor to Porthgenna. On their way out of
the town, they met the postman returning
from his morning's delivery of letters in the
surrounding district. His bag had been much
heavier, and his walk much longer, that
morning than usual. Among the extra
letters that had taken him out of his ordinary
course, was one addressed to the housekeeper
at Porthgenna Tower, which he had
delivered early in the morning, when he first
started on his rounds.

Throughout the whole journey, Uncle
Joseph had not made a single reference to
the object for which it had been undertaken.
Possessing a child's simplicity of nature, he
was also endowed with a child's elasticity of
disposition. The doubts and forebodings
which troubled his niece's spirit, and kept
her silent and thoughtful and sad, cast no
darkening shadow over the natural sunshine
of his mind. If he had really been travelling
for pleasure alone, he could not have enjoyed
more thoroughly than he did the different
sights and events of the journey. All the
happiness which the passing minute had to
give him, he took as readily and gratefully
as if there was no uncertainty in the future,
no doubt, difficulty, or danger lying in wait
for him at the journey's end. Before he had
been half an hour in the coach, he had begun
to tell the third inside passenger—a rigid
old lady, who stared at him in speechless
amazement—the whole history of the musical
box, ending the narrative by setting it playing,
in defiance of all the noise that the
rolling wheels could make. When they left
the coach, he was just as sociable afterwards
with the driver of the chaise, vaunting the
superiority of German beer over Cornish
cider, and making his remarks upon the
objects which they passed on the road with the
pleasantest familiarity, and the heartiest