They failed to come upon the place where he had hidden them; nor did Miss Thankful or her sister ever see them again from that day to this." "Oh!" I exclaimed; "and the nephew?
the nurse ?" "Both went away disappointed; he to face his disgrace about which his aunts were very reticent, and she to seek work which was all the more necessary to her, since she had lost her pay, with the disappearance of these bonds, whose value I have no doubt she knew and calculated on." "And the aunts, the two poor old creatures who stare all day out of their upper window at these walls, still believe that money to be here," I cried.
"Yes, that is their mania.

Several tenants have occupied these premises--tenants who have not stayed long, but who certainly filled all the rooms, and must have penetrated every secret spot the house contains, but it has made no difference to them.

They believe the bonds to be still lying in some out-of-the-way place in these old walls, and are jealous of any one who comes in here.

This you can understand better when I tell you that one feature of their mania is this: they have lost all sense of time.

It is two years since their brother died, yet to them it is an affair of yesterday.