"Oh! who is it? What is he saying?" cried the girls.
"Listen," and she checked the horse. "It is old Hatch, the town-crier; something is lost."
The bell stopped, and in a loud voice the man read from a paper:
"Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Lost, lost! On market square, a tin box, containing papers. The finder will be rewarded by leaving it with the city marshal at the court-house. Oh, yes! Oh, yes!"
The bell rang again at the conclusion of the proclamation, and the man hurried on to the next street-crossing, where the loss was again set forth, his voice coming back in waves of sound as the carriage rolled farther away.
"The 'town-crier,'—that means a crier hired by the town, does it?" said Lancy. "I thought there was not such a thing this side the Atlantic. Why do not people advertise their losses?"
"That is the way they do it," said Beatrice, smiling, "and it pays better, particularly on market days, than to put it in all the city papers. It is the quickest way to make a loss known, or to advertise a sale, for everybody listens to old Hatch, or Mr. Hatch, I should say. It is very old-fashioned to have a town-crier, I suppose, but we should miss him very much, though I daresay the office will die with the present crier."
"I think it is an old English custom," said Lancy. "I have read of criers going through the streets to announce great events, such as battles and other public matters, but I thought they were out of date long ago."
The events of the morning were duly discussed with Mrs. Fremont when they arrived at the house, and she assured them that no thought of inconvenience need cause them to shrink from accepting Mr. McDonald's invitation. Their visit would bring pleasure to all the members of the family.