It was at this time that the Duke of Wellington's army crossed the Pyrenees; and fear took possession of Mrs. Jones, who was not only terrified for her daughter Lucy, but also for certain sums of money, which she had kept long under lock and key. What was to be done? She puzzled a long time; but, in a moment, the words of Monsieur Emanuel Latouche came to her remembrance. He could show her (he had said) a place in that very house which would never be discovered by the keenest eyes; and as she thought of it, her hopes became exalted; she seized a candle from the table, without saying a word, and rushed into the cellar. For where could it be, she asked herself, but in the cellar? Lucy, who beheld her mother so suddenly seized with the spirit of locomotion, naturally imagined she was mad, and followed her as fast as she could. Her first supposition appeared confirmed, when entering the cellar, she found her mother gazing fixedly upon a small iron cross in the wall. "There it is, sure enough," cried Mrs. Jones; "there it is!"
"Are you out of your senses, mama?" demanded Lucy, respectfully; "are you mad? There's what?"
"Why the terraqueous suppository, girl," answered Mrs. Jones, who had forgotten a considerable portion of her English during her residence in France. "The terraqueous suppository, which that old curmudgeon, Latouche, told me of when he attrapped me into taking this old conventicle."
"I do not see any repository at all," said Lucy; "I see nothing but the cellar wall and an iron stancheon to keep it up."
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Jones, "I'll have a mason this minute, and get to the bottom of it." So away she ran and brought a mason; but the first thing was to make him keep secresy; and having conducted him in pomp to the cellar, she shut the door, and made her daughter Lucy give him the Bible. "Swear!" said Mrs. Jones, in a solemn tone, like the Ghost in Hamlet--"Swear!"
"_Je jure tout ce que vous voudrez_--I swear any thing you like," replied the mason; and Mrs. Jones, finding this oath quite comprehensive enough, set him forthwith to work upon the wall just under the iron cross; when, to the triumph of Mrs. Jones and the astonishment of Lucy and the mason, a strong plated door was soon discovered, which readily yielded them admission into a small chamber only ventilated by a round hole, which seemed to pass through the walls of the building and mount upwards to the outer air. Nothing else was to be found. The rubbish was then nicely cleared away, a chair and a table brought down, and the mason paid and sent about his business; when, after having looked in the dark to see that there were no sparks, for the chamber was all of wood, Mrs. Jones and her daughter mounted to upper air, and retired to bed, not to sleep, but to meditate over the _convent subterranean_.