out of his pocket again, until all the duties of
the household for that day had been duly
performed, Shrowl lit the fire, occupied the
morning in making and baking the bread,
and patiently took his turn afterwards at
digging in the kitchen-garden. It was four
o'clock in the afternoon before he felt
himself at liberty to think of his private affairs,
and to venture on retiring into solitude with
the object of secretly looking over the letter
again.

A second perusal of Doctor Chennery's
unlucky application to Mr. Treverton helped
to confirm Shrowl in his resolution not to
destroy the letter. With great pains and
perseverance, and much incidental scratching
at his beard, he contrived to make himself
master of three distinct points in it, which
stood out, in his estimation, as possessing
prominent and serious importance. The first
point which he contrived to establish clearly in
his mind was, that the person who signed the
name of Robert Chennery was desirous of
examining a plan, or printed account, of the north
side of the interior of a certain old house in
Cornwall, called Porthgenna Tower. The
second point appeared to resolve itself into
this:— that Robert Chennery believed some
such plan, or printed account, might be found
among the collection of books belonging to
Mr. Treverton. The third point was, that
this same Robert Chennery would receive
the loan of the plan or printed account as
one of the greatest favours that could be
conferred on him. Meditating on the latter
fact, with an eye exclusively fixed on the
contemplation of his own interests, Shrowl
arrived at the conclusion that it might be
well worth his while, in a pecuniary point of
view, to try if he could not privately place
himself in a position to oblige Robert Chennery
by searching in secret among his master's
books. "It might be worth a five-pound
note to me, if I managed it well," thought
Shrowl, putting the letter back in his
pocket again, and ascending the stairs thoughtfully
to the lumber-rooms at the top of the
house.

These rooms were two in number, were
entirely unfurnished, and were littered all
over with the rare collection of books which
had once adorned the library at Porthgenna
Tower. Covered with dust, and scattered in
all directions and positions over the floor,
lay hundreds on hundreds of volumes, cast
out of their packing-cases as coals are cast
out of their sacks into a cellar. Ancient
books, which students would have treasured
as priceless, lay in chaotic equality of neglect
side by side with modern publications whose
chief merit was the beauty of the binding by
which they were enclosed. Into this wilderness
of scattered volumes Shrowl now wandered,
fortified by the supreme self-possession of
ignorance, to search resolutely for one
particular book, with no other light to direct him
than the faint glimmer of the two guiding
words, Porthgenna Tower. Having got them
firmly fixed in his mind, his next object was
to search until he found them printed on the
first page of any one of the hundreds of
volumes that lay around him. This was, for
the time being, emphatically his business
in life, and there he now stood, in the largest
of the two attics, doggedly prepared to
do it.

He cleared away space enough with his
feet to enable him to sit down comfortably
on the floor, and then began to look over all
the books that lay within arm's length of
him. Odd volumes of rare editions of the
classics, odd volumes of the English historians,
odd volumes of plays by the Elizabethan
dramatists, books of travel, books of sermons,
books of jests, books of natural history, books
of sports, turned up in quaint and rapid
succession; but no book containing on the
title-page the words "Porthgenna Tower,"
rewarded the searching industry of Shrowl
for the first ten minutes after he had sat
himself down on the floor.

Before removing to another position, and
contending with a fresh accumulation of literary
lumber, he paused and considered a
little with himself, whether there might not
be some easier and more orderly method than
any he had yet devised of working his way
through the scattered mass of volumes which
yet remained to be examined. The result of
his reflections was, that it would be less
confusing to him, if he searched through the
books in all parts of the room indifferently,
regulating his selection of them solely by
their various sizes; disposing of all the
largest to begin with; then, after stowing
them away together, proceeding to the next
largest, and so going on until he came down
at last to the pocket-volumes. Accordingly,
he cleared away another morsel of vacant
space, near the wall, and then, trampling over
the books as coolly as if they were so many
clods of earth on a ploughed field, picked out
the largest of all the volumes that lay on the
floor.

It was an atlas. Shrowl turned over the
maps, reflected, shook his head, and removed
the volume to the vacant space which he
had cleared close to the wall.

The next largest book was a magnificently
bound collection of engraved portraits of
distinguished characters. Shrowl saluted the
distinguished characters with a grunt of
gothic disapprobation, and carried them off
to keep the atlas company against the
wall.

The third largest book lay under several
others. It projected a little at one end, and
it was bound in scarlet morocco. In another
position, or bound in a quieter colour, it
would probably have escaped notice. Shrowl
drew it out with some difficulty, opened it
with a portentous frown of distrust, looked at
the title-page—and suddenly slapped his thigh
with a great oath of exultation. There were