quite woke up out of that fine dream of yours, and you saw double. It was
just as much young Hartledon as it was me."

"I never saw a ghost yet, and I don't fear I ever shall, Gum. I tell
you it was Lord Hartledon. And if harm doesn't befall him at Calne, as
shadowed forth in my dream, never believe me again."

"There, that's enough," peremptorily cried the clerk; knowing, if once
Mrs. Gum took up any idea with a dream for its basis, how impossible it
was to turn her. "Is the key of that kitchen door found yet?"

"No: it never will be, Gum. I've told you so before. My belief is, and
always has been, that Rebecca let it drop by accident into the waste
bucket."

"_My_ belief is, that Rebecca made away with it for her own purposes,"
said the clerk. "I caught her just now with the door wide open. She's
trying to make acquaintance with the man Pike; that's what she's at."

"Oh, Gum!"

"Yes; it's all very well to say 'Oh, Gum!' but if you were below-stairs
looking after her, instead of dreaming up here, it might be better for
everyone. Let me once be certain about it, and off she goes the next
hour. A fine thing 'twould be some day for us to find her head smothered
in the kitchen purgatory, and the silver spoons gone; as will be the case
if any loose characters get in."

He was descending the stairs as he spoke the last sentence, delivered in
loud tones, probably for the benefit of Miss Rebecca Jones. And lest the