Anne Hereford

An express train was dashing along a line of rails in the heart of England. On one of the first-class carriages there had been a board, bearing the intimation "For Ladies only," but the guard took it off when the train first started. It had come many miles since. Seated inside, the only passenger in that compartment, was a little girl in deep mourning. All was black about her save the white frills of her drawers which peeped below her short, black, flounced frock. A thoughtful, gentle child, with a smooth, pale forehead, earnest eyes, and long, dark eyelashes that swept her cheek. It was a gloomy September day, foggy, and threatening rain--a sad-looking day; and the child's face seemed to have borrowed the aspect of the weather, pervaded, as it was, by a tinge of sadness. That little girl was myself, Anne Hereford.

The train slackened speed, and glided into an important station, larger than any we had passed. It was striking one, and the guard came up to the carriage. "Now, my little lady," said he, "change lines here, and stop for ten minutes."

I liked that guard. He had a kind, hearty face, and he had come up several times to the carriage-door during the journey, asking how I got on. He told me he had a little girl of his own, about as old as I.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, as he lifted me from the carriage.

"Not very, thank you. I have eaten the biscuits."

"Halloa! Stern!" he called out, stopping a man who was hurrying past. "Are you going with the Nettleby train?"

"Yes. What if I am?" was the man's answer. He was rightly named Stern, for he had a stern, sour face.

"See this little girl. She is in the guard's charge. To be put in the ladies' carriage, and taken on to Nettleby."

The man gave a short nod by way of answer, and hurried away. And the guard took me into a large room, where crowds were pressing round a counter. "Here, Miss Williams," he said, to one of the young women behind it, "give this little lady something to eat and drink, and take care of her till the Nettleby train starts. She's to have what comes to a shilling."

"What will you take, my dear?" asked Miss Williams.

The counter was so full of good things that I did not know what, but fixed at length upon a plum-tart. Miss Williams laughed, and said I had better eat some sandwiches first and the tart afterwards.

She was pouring me out a cup of coffee when the guard came up again. "Your baggage is changed, little lady," said he. "You'll find it all right at the Nettleby Station. Good-day."

"Good-bye, and thank you," I answered, holding out my hand, that he might shake it. I felt sorry to part with him--he seemed like a friend. Soon after, the surly guard put in his head and beckoned to me. He marshalled me to a carriage which had a similar board upon it to the other, "For Ladies only," and shut me in without a word. Two ladies sat opposite to me. They did not speak either; but they stared a great deal. I thought it must be at the two tarts Miss Williams had given me in a paper bag, and I did not like to eat them.

At the next station another lady got in, and she began talking at once.

"Are you travelling all alone, little girl?"

"Yes, ma'am. The guard takes care of me."

"Have you come far?"

I had come from a remote part of Devonshire, the sea-coast. It seemed a long way to me, and I said so.

"Will you tell me your name? I dare say it is a pretty one."

"It is Anne Hereford."

"Devonshire is a very nice part of the country. Have you lived in it all your life?"

"Not quite. I was born in India. Mamma brought me to England when I was three years old."

"You are in deep mourning. Is it for a near relative?"

I did not answer. I turned to look out at the window until the tears should go away again. I could not bear that strangers should see them. The lady asked again, and presently I turned round.

"For mamma."

She was silent for some time, looking at me. "Is your papa dead also?"

"He died a long while before mamma did."

"You say you were born in India: perhaps he was an officer?"

"He was Colonel Hereford."

"How many brothers and sisters have you?"

"Not any."

"Where are you going to live?"

"I don't know. I am going now to my Aunt Selina's."

The train approached a station, and the lady got out, or she probably would have asked me a great deal more. At the station following that, the two silent ladies left, and I was alone again. The first thing I did was to eat my tarts and throw away the paper bag. After that I fell asleep, and remembered no more till the guard's surly voice woke me.

"This is Nettleby, if you are going to get out. He said something about some luggage. How much is it?"

"A large box and a small one, and two carpet-bags. 'Miss Hereford, passenger to Nettleby,' is written on them. Can you please to tell me whether it is far to Mr. Edwin Barley's?"

"I don't know any Mr. Edwin Barley. Jem," added he, to one of the porters, "see after her. I'm going to hand out her things."

"Where do you want to go, miss?" the porter asked.

"To Mr. Edwin Barley's. They told me I must get out at Nettleby Station, and ask to be sent on, unless a carriage met me here."

"You must mean Mr. Edwin Barley of Hallam."

"Yes, that's it. Is it far?"

"Well, Hallam's five miles off, and the house is a mile on this side of it. There's no rail, miss; you must go by the omnibus."

"But you are sure that Mrs. Edwin Barley has not come to meet me?" I asked, feeling a sort of chill creep over me. Not any one had come, and the porter put me into the omnibus with some more passengers. What a long drive it seemed! And the hedges and trees looked very dreary, for the shades of evening were gathering.

At the foot of a hill the omnibus pulled up, and a man who had sat by the driver came round. "Ain't there somebody inside for Mr. Edwin Barley's?"

"Yes; I am."

I got out, and the luggage was put upon the ground. "Two shillings, miss," said the man.

"Two shillings!" I repeated, in great alarm.

"Why, did you expect to come for one--and inside too! It's uncommon cheap, is this omnibus."

"Oh, it is not that. But I have not any money."

"Not got any money!"

"They did not give me any. They gave the guard my fare to Nettleby. Mr. Sterling said I should be sure to be met."

The man went up to the driver. "I say, Bill, this child says she's got no money."

The driver turned round and looked at me. "We can call to-morrow for it; I dare say it's all right. Do you belong to the Barleys, miss?"

"Mrs. Edwin Barley is my aunt. I am come on a visit to her."

"Oh, it's all right. Get up, Joe."

"But please," said I, stopping the man, in an agony of fear--for I could see no house or sign of one, except a small, round, low building that might contain one room--"which is Mr. Edwin Barley's? Am I to stay in the road with the boxes?" The man laughed, said he had supposed I knew, and began shouting out, "Here, missis!" two or three times. "You see that big green gate, miss?" he added to me. "Well, that leads up to Mr. Barley's, and that's his lodge."

A woman came out of the lodge, in answer to the shouts, and opened the gate. The man explained, put the trunks inside the gate, and the omnibus drove on.

"I beg pardon that I can't go up to the house with you, miss, but it's not far, and you can't miss it," said she. "I have got my baby sick in its cradle, and dare not leave it alone. You are little Miss Hereford?"

"Yes."

"It's odd they never sent to meet you at Nettleby, if they knew you were coming! But they have visitors at the house, and perhaps young madam forgot it. Straight on, miss, and you'll soon come to the hall-door; go up the steps, and give a good pull at the bell."

There was no help for it: I had to go up the gloomy avenue alone. It was a broad gravel drive, wide enough for three carriages to pass each other; a thick grove of trees on either side. The road wound round, and I had just got in sight of the house when I was startled considerably by what proved to be a man's head projecting beyond the trees. He appeared to be gazing steadfastly at the house, but turned his face suddenly at my approach. But for that, I might not have observed him. The face looked dark, ugly, menacing; and I started with a spring to the other side of the way.

I did not speak to him, or he to me, but my heart beat with fear, and I was glad enough to see lights from several of the windows in front of me. I thought it a very large house; I found afterwards that it contained eighteen rooms, and some of them small: but then we had lived in a pretty cottage of six. There was no need to ring. At the open door stood a man and a maid-servant, laughing and talking.

"Who are you?" cried the girl.

"I want Mrs. Edwin Barley."

"Then I think want must be your master," she returned. "It is somebody from Hallam, I suppose. Mrs. Edwin Barley cannot possibly see you to-night."

"You just go away, little girl," added the footman. "You must come to-morrow morning, if you want anything."

Their manner was so authoritative that I felt frightened, almost crying as I stood. What if they should really turn me away!

"Why don't you go?" asked the girl, sharply.

"I have nowhere to go to. My boxes are down at the gate."

"Why, who are you?" she inquired, in a quick tone.

"I am Miss Hereford."

"Heart alive!" she whispered to the man. "I beg your pardon, miss. I'll call Charlotte Delves."

"What's that? Who will you call?" broke from an angry voice at the back of the hall. "Call 'Charlotte Delves,' will you? Go in to your work this instant, you insolent girl. Do you hear me, Jemima?"

"I didn't know you were there, Miss Delves," was the half-saucy, half-deprecating answer. "The young lady has come--Miss Hereford."

A tall, slight, good-looking woman of thirty-five or thirty-six came forward. I could not tell whether she was a lady or a smart maid. She wore a small, stylish cap, and a handsome muslin gown with flounces--which were in fashion then. Her eyes were light; long, light curls fell on either side her face and her address was good.

"How do you do, Miss Hereford?" she said, taking my hand. "Come in, my dear. We did not expect you until next week. Mrs. Barley is in the drawing-room."

"Mrs. Barley is in her chamber, dressing for dinner," contended Jemima, from the back of the hall, as if intent on aggravation.

Miss Delves made no reply. She ran upstairs, and opened a door, from whence came a warm glow of firelight. "Wait there a moment," she said, looking round at me. "Mrs. Edwin Barley, the child has come."

"What child?" returned a voice--a young, gay, sweet voice.

"Little Miss Hereford."

"My goodness! Come to-day! And I with no mourning about me, to speak of. Well, let her come in."

I knew my Aunt Selina again in a moment. She had stayed with us in Devonshire for three months two years before, when she was nineteen. The same lovely face, with its laughing blue eyes, and its shining golden hair. She wore an embroidered clear-muslin white dress, with low body and sleeves, and a few black ribbons; jet bracelets, and a long jet chain.

"You darling child! But what made you come in this strange way, without notice?"

"Mr. Sterling said he wrote word to you, Selina, that I should be here on Thursday. You ought to have had the letter yesterday."

"Well, so he did write; but I thought--how stupid I must have been!" she interrupted, with a sudden laugh. "I declare I took it to mean next Thursday. But you are all the more welcome, dear. You have grown prettier, Anne, with those deep eyes of yours."

I stood before her very gravely. I had dreaded the meeting, believing it would be one of sobs and lamentation for my mother; not taking into account how careless and light-headed Selina was. I had called her "Selina," since, a little girl of four, I had gone on a visit to Keppe-Carew.

Taking off my bonnet, she kissed me several times, and then held me before her by my hands as she sat on the sofa. Miss Delves went out and closed the door.

"They are not home from shooting yet, Anne, so we can have a little talk to ourselves. When they go to the far covers, there's no knowing when they'll be in: two nights ago they kept me waiting dinner until eight o'clock."

"Who did, Aunt Selina?"

"Mr. Barley, and the rest," she answered, carelessly. "Anne, how very strange it was that your mamma should have died so quickly at the last! It was only two weeks before her death that she wrote to tell me she was ill."

"She had been ill longer than that, Aunt Selina--"

"Call me Selina, child."

"But she did not tell any one until she knew there was danger. She did not tell me."

"It was a renewal of that old complaint she had in India--that inward complaint."

I turned my head and my wet eyes from her. "They told me it was her heart, Selina."

"Yes; in a measure; that had something to do with it. It must have been a sad parting, Anne. Why, child, you are sobbing!"

"Please don't talk of it!"

"But I must talk of it: I like to have my curiosity gratified," she said, in her quick way. "Did the doctors say from the first that there was no hope?"

"Mamma knew there was no hope when she wrote to you. She had told me so the day before."

"I wonder she told you at all."

"Oh, Selina! that fortnight was too short for the leave-taking; for all she had to say to me. It will be years, perhaps, before we meet again."

"Meet again! Meet where?"

"In heaven!"

"You are a strange child!" exclaimed Selina, looking at me very steadfastly. "Ursula has infected you, I see, with her serious notions. I used to tell her there was time enough for it years hence."

"And mamma used to tell you that perhaps, if you put oft and put off, the years hence might never come for you, Selina."

"What! you remember that, do you?" she said, with a smile. "Yes, she used to lecture me; she was fifteen years older than I, and assumed the right to do so."

"Mamma never lectured; what she said was always kind and gentle," was my sobbing answer.

"Yes, yes. You think me insensible now, Anne; but my grief is over--that is, the violence of the grief. When the letter came to say Ursula was dead, I cried the whole day, never ceasing."

"Mamma had a warning of her death," I continued; for it was one of the things she had charged me to tell to her sister Selina.

"Had a what, child?"

"A warning. The night before she was taken ill--I mean dangerously ill--she dreamt she saw papa in a most beautiful place, all light and flowers; no place on earth could ever have been so beautiful except the Garden of Eden. He beckoned her to come to him, and pointed to a vacant place by his side, saying, 'It is ready for you now, Ursula.' Mamma awoke then, and the words were sounding in her ears; she could have felt sure that they were positively spoken."

"And you can tell me this with a grave face, calling it a warning!" exclaimed Selina.

"Mamma charged me to tell it you. She related the dream to us the next morning--"

"Us! Whom do you mean, child?"

"Me and our old maid Betty. She was my nurse, you know. Mamma said what a pleasant dream it was, that she was sorry to awake from it; but after she grew ill, she said she knew it was sent as a warning."

Selina laughed. "You have lived boxed up with that stupid old Betty and your mamma, child, until you are like a grave little woman. Ursula was always superstitious. You will say you believe in ghosts next."

"No, I do not believe in ghosts. I do in warnings. Mamma said that never a Keppe-Carew died yet without being warned of it: though few of them had noticed it at the time."

"There, that will do, Anne. I am a Carew, and I don't want to be frightened into watching for a 'warning.' You are a Carew also, on the mother's side. Do you know, my poor child, that you are not left well off?"

"Yes; mamma has told me all. I don't mind."

"Don't mind!" echoed Selina, with another light laugh. "That's because you don't understand, Anne. What little your mamma has left has been sunk in an annuity for your education--eighty or a hundred pounds a year, until you are eighteen. There's something more, I believe, for clothes and incidental expenses."

"I said I did not mind, Selina, because I am not afraid of getting my own living. Mamma said that a young lady, well-educated and of good birth, can always command a good position as governess. She told me not to fear, for God would take care of me."

"Some money might be desirable for all that," returned my aunt, in a tone that sounded full of irreverence to my unaccustomed ears. "The maddest step Colonel Hereford ever took was that of selling out. He thought to better himself, and he spent and lost the money, leaving your mamma with very little when he died."

"I don't think mamma cared much for money, Selina."

"I don't think she did, or she would not have taken matters so quietly. Do you remember, Anne, how she used to go on at me when I said I should marry Edwin Barley?"

"Yes; mamma said how very wrong it would be of you to marry for money."

"Quite true. She used to put her hands to her ears when I said I hated him. Now, what are those earnest eyes of yours searching me for?"

"Do you hate him, Selina?"

"I am not dying of love for him, you strange child."

"One day a poor boy had a monkey before the window, and you said Mr. Edwin Barley was as ugly as that. Is he ugly?"

Selina burst into a peal of laughter. "Oh, he is very handsome, Anne; as handsome as the day: when you see him you shall tell me if you don't think so. I--What is the matter? What are you looking at?"

As I stood before my aunt, the door behind her seemed to be pushed gently open. I had thought some one was coming in; and said so.

"The fire-light must have deceived you, Anne. That door is kept bolted; it leads to a passage communicating with my bedroom, but we do not use it."

"I am certain that I saw it open," was my answer; and an unpleasant, fanciful thought came over me that it might be the man I saw in the avenue. "It is shut now; it shut again when I spoke."

She rose, walked to the door, and tried to open it, but it was fast.

"You see, Anne. Don't you get fanciful, my dear; that is what your mamma was." But I shook my head in answer.

"Selina, did not Mr. Edwin Barley want me to go to Mrs. Hemson's instead of coming here?"

"Who told you that?"

"I heard Mr. Sterling talking of it with mamma."

"Mr. Edwin Barley did, little woman. Did you hear why he wished it?"

"No."

"You should have heard that, it was so flattering to me. He thought I was too giddy to take charge of a young lady."

"Did he?"

"But Ursula would not accept the objection. It could not matter for a few weeks, she wrote to Mr. Edwin Barley, whether I were giddy or serious, and she could not think of consigning you, even temporarily, to Mrs. Hemson. Ah! my cousin Frances Carew and I took exactly opposite courses, Anne; I married for money, she for love. She met an attractive stranger at a watering-place, and married him."

"And it was not right?"

"It was all wrong. He was a tradesman. A good-looking, educated man--I grant that; but a tradesman. Never was such a thing heard of, as for a Carew to stoop to that. You see, Anne, she had learnt to like him before she knew anything of his position, or who he was. He was a visitor at the place, just as she was. Of course she ought to have given him up. Not she; she gave herself and her money to him, and a very pretty little fortune she had."

"Did she marry in disobedience?"

"That cannot be charged upon her, for she was alone in the world, and her own mistress. But a Carew of Keppe-Carew ought to have known better."

"She was not of Keppe-Carew, Selina."

"She was. Don't you know that, Anne? Her father was Carew of Keppe-Carew; and when he died without a son, his brother, your mamma's father and mine, succeeded to KeppeCarew. He died in his turn, leaving no son, and Keppe-Carew and its broad lands went to a distant relative, the male heir. We three Carews have all married badly, in one way or another."

Mrs. Edwin Barley was speaking dreamily then, as if forgetting any one heard her.

"She, Frances, married Hemson the tradesman, placing a barrier between herself and her family; Ursula married Colonel Hereford, to wear out a few of her best years in India, and then to die in poverty, and leave a child unprovided for; and I have married Edwin Barley. Which is the worst, I wonder?"

I thought over what she said in my busy brain. Few children had so active a one.

"Selina, you say you married Mr. Edwin Barley because he is rich."

"Well?"

"Why did you, when you were rich yourself?"

"I rich? You will count riches differently when you are older. Why, Anne, do you know what my fortune was? Four thousand pounds. Ursula had the same, and she and Colonel Hereford spent it. That put a notion into my father's head, and he tied mine up tight enough, securing it to my absolute use until I die."

"Will it be Mr. Barley's when you die, Selina?"

"Were I to die before next Monday, it would be yours, pussy, for it is so settled. After that, if I die without a will, it would go to Mr. Edwin Barley; but I shall be of age next Monday, and then can make one. I think it must be my first care--a will," she laughed. "So munificent a sum to dispose of! Shall I leave it to you?"

The room-door was pushed open, and some one entered. A shortish man, of nearly forty years, in a velveteen shooting-coat and gaiters, and with a dark face: the same dark face that had looked out from the trees in the avenue. I shrank round Selina with a sudden fear. Not that the features were particularly ill-favoured in themselves, but so dark and stern. And the remembrance of the fright was on me still.

"Where are you coming to, child?" she said. "This is Mr. Edwin Barley."

That Mr. Edwin Barley! My imagination had been setting the face down for a robber's at least; and the thought flashed over me--How could Selina have married him? Another thought came with it--Had he been the intruder at the door?

"Who is that, Selina?" he asked in a very strong, determined voice, but not an unpleasing one.

"Anne Hereford. Fancy my making so stupid a mistake as to conclude it was next Thursday the lawyer meant. And she has had to find her way from Nettleby in the best way she could."

He looked at me with his black eyes, the blackest eyes I had ever seen. Either they wore a warning expression, or I fancied so, and I took it to mean I was not to say I saw him watching the house from the avenue. No fear, after that, that I should speak of it.

"Did you walk from Nettleby, little one?"

"No, sir. I came in the omnibus to the gate."

"She has been asking me if you were very handsome; and I told her to wait and see," observed Selina, with a laugh, and somehow it grated on my ears. He made no reply in words, but his brow contracted a little. I noticed one thing--that he had very pretty teeth, white and even.

"How is it you are home before the others?" she resumed. "And where are they lingering? Charlotte Delves says the dinner is spoiling."

"They cannot be far behind," was Mr. Edwin Barley's answer. "I'll go and dress."

As he went out of the room we heard sounds of voices and laughter. Selina opened the window, and I stood by her. The night had grown clearer, the moon was bright. Three gentlemen, dressed something like Mr. Edwin Barley, were approaching the house with game, guns, and dogs.

"Can you see them by this light, Anne?"

"I can see that two are young, and one looks old. He has grey hair."

"Not very old, not more than fifty--but he is so stout. It is the parson, Mr. Martin."

"Do parsons go out shooting, Selina?"

"Only when they can get the chance," she laughed. "That young one is Philip King, a ward of Mr. Edwin Barley's. He and I are not friends at all, and I do what I can to vex him. He is terribly ill-tempered."

"Is he?"

"He fell in love with me at Easter, the silly boy! Fancy that! One can't think it was in earnest, you know, but it really seemed like it. I asked him if he would like his ears boxed, and Mr. Edwin Barley gave us both a sharp talking-to, saying we ought to be sent to school again."

"Both! But if it was not your fault?" -

"Mr. Edwin Barley said it was my fault," she returned, with a laugh. "Perhaps it was. He has not, as I believe, loved Philip King since."

"Who is the other one with them, Selina?" I asked, as the gentlemen below disappeared.

"The other is George Heneage--a great friend of mine. Hush! he is coming up."

George Heneage entered. A young man, tall, slender, active; with a pale, pleasant face, and dark wavy hair. He had a merry smile, and I thought I had never seen any one so nice-looking. Mrs. Edwin Barley moved to the fire, and he took her hand in greeting.

"Well! And how have you been all day? Dull?"

It was the pleasantest voice in the world! Quite a contrast to that of Mr. Edwin Barley.

"Much any of you care whether I am dull or gay," she returned in answer, half laughing, half pouting. "The partridges get all your time, just now. I might be dead and buried before any of you came home to see after me."

"We must shoot, you know, Selina. One of us, at any rate, came home a couple of hours ago--Barley."

"Not to me. He has only just come in. You must be mistaken."

"Look here. I was away for a short time from the party, seeing after the horse I lamed the other day, and when I got back, Barley had vanished: they thought he had gone to look after me. Perhaps he had in one sense, the great simpleton--Halloa! who's that?" he broke off, seeing me for the first time, as I stood partly within the shade of the window-curtain.

"It is little Anne Hereford. She has arrived a week before I expected her. Anne, come forward, and let Mr. Heneage make love to you. It is a pastime he favours."

He lifted me up by the waist, looked at me, and put me down again.

"A pretty little face to make love to. How old are you?"

"Eleven, sir."

"Eleven!" he echoed, in surprise. "I should have taken you for nine at the very most. Eleven!"

"And eleventeen in sober sense," interposed Selina, in her lightest and most careless manner. "I suppose children are so who never live with brothers and sisters. You should hear her talk, George! I tell her her mamma and nurse have made an old woman of her."

"Dare I venture to your presence in this trim, Mrs. Edwin Barley?"

The speaker was the Reverend Mr. Martin, who came slowly in, pointing to his attire.

"It is Barley's fault, and you must blame him, not me," he continued. "Barley invited me to say grace at your table today, and then disappeared, keeping us waiting for him until now, and giving me no time to go home and make myself presentable."

"Never mind, Mr. Martin, there are worse misfortunes at sea," she said, in that charmingly attractive manner that she could sometimes use. "I have sat down with gentlemen in sheeting-coats before to-day, and enjoyed my dinner none the worse for it. Is that you, Miss Delves?"

Footsteps were passing the open door, and Miss Delves came in.

"Did you speak, Mrs. Edwin Barley?"

"Yes. Take this child, please: she must have some tea. Anne dear, ask for anything to eat that you best fancy. You shall come up again after dinner."

We went to a small parlour on the ground floor--Miss Delves said it was her own sitting-room--and she rang the bell. The maid who had been gossiping at the front-door came in to answer it.

"Are you at tea still, Jemima?"

"Yes, Miss Delves."

"I thought so. There's no regularity here unless I'm everywhere about myself. Bring in a cup for Miss Hereford, and some bread and butter."

They both left the room. I supposed that Miss Delves was going to dine presently, for a cloth was spread over one end of the table, with a knife and silver forks, the cruet-stand and salt-cellar, glasses, and a decanter of wine. Presently Jemima came back with a small tray, that had my tea upon it. She seemed a free-and-easy sort of girl, sat down in a chair, and began chattering. Another servant came in with a small jar of preserves. They called her Sarah.

"Miss Delves has sent some jam for the young lady, if she'd like it. Or will she take a slice of cold meat first, she says?"

"I'll have the jam, please."

"That's right, miss," laughed Jemima. "Sweets is good."

"Aren't you coming to your tea, Jemima? There'll be a fuss if she comes in and finds you have not begun it."

"Bother the tea! We are not obliged to swallow it down just at the minute she pleases," was the answer of Jemima.

"I say," exclaimed the other suddenly, "what do you think I saw? Young King--"

Jemima gave a warning shake of the head, and pointed to me. The conversation was continued in a whisper, in which I once caught the words, "that handsome George Heneage." Presently steps were heard approaching, and the two maids disturbed themselves. Sarah caught up the plate of bread and butter, and stood as if she were handing it to me, and Jemima stirred the fire vigorously. It had been warm in the day, but the bit of lighted fire in the grate looked pleasant in the autumn evening. The footsteps passed on.

"How stupid you are, Sarah! startling one for nothing!" exclaimed Jemima.

"I thought it was Charlotte Delves. It sounded just like her foot."

"She's in the kitchen, and won't come out of it till the dinner's gone in. She's in one of her tempers to-day."

"Is Charlotte Delves the mistress?" I could not help asking.

Both the maids burst out laughing. "She would like to be, miss; and she is, too, in many things," answered Jemima. "When young madam came home first--"

"Hush, Jemima! she may go and repeat it again."

Jemima looked at me. "No: she does not look like it. You won't go and repeat in the drawing-room the nonsense we foolish servants talk, will you, Miss Hereford?"

"Of course I will not. Mamma taught me never to carry tales; she said it made mischief."

"And so it does, miss," cried Jemima. "Your mamma was a nice lady, I'm sure! Was she not Mrs. Edwin Barley's sister?"

Before I had time to answer, Charlotte Delves came in. We had not heard her, and I thought she must have crept up on tiptoe. Sarah made her escape. Jemima took up the jam-pot.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded, with asperity.

"I came in to see if the young lady wanted anything, ma'am."

"When Miss Hereford wants anything, she will ring." Jemima retired. I went on with my tea, and Miss Delves began asking me questions about home and mamma. We were interrupted by a footman. He was bringing the fish out of the dining-room, and he laid the dish down on the table. Miss Delves turned her chair towards it, and began her dinner. I found that this was her usual manner of dining, but I thought it a curious one. The dishes, as they came out of the dining-room, were placed before her, and she helped herself. Her other meals she took when she pleased, Jemima generally waiting upon her. I did wonder who she could be.

It seemed that I had to sit there a long time. I was then taken upstairs by Jemima, and my hair brushed. It hung down in curls all round, and Jemima pleased me by saying it was the loveliest brown hair she had ever seen. Then I was marshalled to the drawing-room. Jemima opened the door quietly, and I went in, seen, I believe, by no one. It was a large room, three-cornered in shape, quite full of bright furniture. Selina's grand piano was in one of the angles.

Standing before the fire, talking, were the clergyman and Mr. Edwin Barley. A stranger might have taken one for the other, for the clergyman was in his sporting clothes, and Mr. Barley was all in black, with a white neckcloth. On a distant sofa, apparently reading a newspaper, sat Philip King; his features were handsome, but they had a very cross, disagreeable expression. He held the newspaper nearly level with his face, and I saw that his eyes, instead of being on it, were watching the movements of Mrs. Edwin Barley. She was at the piano, not so much singing or playing, as trying scraps of songs and pieces. Mr. Heneage was standing by and talking to her. I went quietly round by the chairs at the back, and sat down on the low footstool at the corner of the hearth. The clergyman saw me and smiled. Mr. Barley did not; he stood with his back to me. He also seemed to be watching the piano, or those at it, while he spoke in low, confidential tones with the clergyman. -

"I disagree with you entirely, Barley," Mr. Martin was saying. "Rely upon it, he will be all the better and happier for following a profession. Why! at Easter he made up his mind to read for the Bar!"

"Young men are changeable as the wind, especially those whom fortune has placed at ease in the world," replied Mr. Barley. "Philip was red-hot for the Bar at Easter, as you observe; but something appears to have set him against it now."

"You, as his guardian and trustee, should urge him to take it up; or, if not that, something else. A life of idleness plays the very ruin with some natures; and it strikes me that Philip King has no great resources within him to counteract the mischief of no occupation. What is the amount of his property?" resumed Mr. Martin, after a pause.

"The estate brings in about eighteen hundred a year." "Nonsense! I thought it was only ten or twelve."

"Eighteen, full. Reginald's was a long minority, you know."

"Well, if it brought in eight-and-twenty, I should still say give him a profession. Let him have some legitimate work; occupy his hands and his head, and they won't get into mischief. That's sound advice, mind, Barley."

"Quite sound," rejoined Mr. Barley; but there was a tone in his voice throughout that to me seemed to tell either of want of sincerity or else of a knowledge that to urge a profession on Philip King would be wrong and useless. At this period of my life people used to reproach me with taking up prejudices, likes and dislikes; as I grew older, I knew that God had gifted me in an eminent degree with the faculty of reading human countenances and human tones.

"I have no power to force a profession upon him," resumed Mr. Edwin Barley; "and I should not exercise it if I had. Shall I tell you why?"

"Well?"

"I don't think his lungs are sound. In my opinion, he is likely to go off as his brother did."

"Of consumption!" hastily muttered the clergyman: and Mr. Edwin Barley nodded.

"Therefore, why urge him to fag at acquiring a profession that he may not live to exercise?" continued Mr. Barley. "He looks anything but well; he is nothing like as robust as he was at Easter."

Mr. Martin turned his head and attentively scanned the face of Philip King. "I don't see anything the matter with him, Barley, except that he looks uncommonly cross. I hope you are mistaken."

"I hope I am. I saw a whole row of medicine phials in his room yesterday: when I inquired what they did there, he told me they contained steel medicine-tonics--the physician at Oxford had ordered them. Did you ever notice him at dinner--what he eats?"

"Not particularly."

"Do so, then, the next opportunity. He takes scarcely anything. The commencement of Reginald's malady was loss of appetite: the doctors prescribed tonics for him. But they did not succeed in saving him."

Once more Mr. Martin turned his eyes on Philip King. "How old was Reginald King when he died?"

"Twenty-three. Three years older than Philip is now."

"Well, poor fellow, I hope he will outlive his weakness, whatever may cause it, and get strong again. That money of his would be a nice windfall for some one to drop into," added the clergyman, after a pause. "Who is heir-at-law?"

"I am."

"You!"

"Of course I am," was the quiet reply of Mr. Edwin Barley.

"Nurse him up, nurse him up, then," said the clergyman, jokingly. "Lest, if anything did happen, the world should say you had not done your best to prevent it; for you know you are a dear lover of money, Barley."

There may have been a great deal more said, but I did not hear. My head had sought the wall for its resting-place, and sleep stole over me.

What I felt most glad of, the next morning, was to get my purse. There were twenty-seven shillings in it; and old Betty had caused it to be put in one of the boxes, vexing me. "People in the train might rob me of it," she said.

Jemima waited on me at dressing, and I had breakfast in Miss Delves's parlour. Afterwards I went up to Mrs. Edwin Barley in the drawing-room. She was in mourning, deep as mine.

"I had been tempted to put it off for a cool dress yesterday evening," she said to me. "What with dinner, and the fire they will have, though I am sure it is not weather for it, I feel melted in black. The fire is kept large to please Philip King. So Miss Delves informed me when I remonstrated against it the other day. He must be of a chilly nature."

Remembering what I had heard said the previous night, I thought he might be. But the words had afforded the opportunity for a question that I was longing, in my curiosity, to put.

"Selina, who is Miss Delves? Is she a lady or a servant?"

"You had better not call her a servant, Anne; she would never forgive it," answered Selina, with a laugh. "She is a relative of Mr. Edwin Barley's."

"Then, why does she not sit with you, and dine at table?"

"Because I do not choose that she shall sit with me, and dine at table," was the resentful, haughty retort; and I could see that there had been some past unpleasantness in regard to Miss Delves. "When Mr. Edwin Barley's mother died, who used to live with him, Charlotte Delves came here as mistress of the house. That was all very well so long as there was no legitimate mistress, but ages went on, and I came to it. She assumed a great deal. I found she was planted down at table with us, and made herself my companion in the drawing-room at will. I did not like it; and one day I told my husband so in her presence. I said that I must be sole mistress in my own house, and quitted the room, leaving them to settle it. Since then she has taken the parlour for her sitting-room, and looks to the household, as she did before. In short, Miss Delves is housekeeper. I have no objection to that; it saves me trouble, and I know nothing of domestic management. Now and then I invite her to take tea with us, or to a drive with me in the pony carriage, and we are vastly polite to each other always."

"But if you do not like her--"

"Like her!" interrupted Selina. "My dear child, we hate each other like poison. It was not in human nature, you know, for her not to feel my entrance to the house as a wrong, displacing her from her post, and from the influence she had contrived to acquire over Mr. Edwin Barley. They were as intimate as brother and sister; and I believe he is the only living being she cares for in the whole world. When I took a high tone with her, it exasperated her all the more against me, there's no doubt of it; and she repays it by carrying petty tales of me to Mr. Edwin Barley."

"And whose part did he take, Selina!"

"Mine, of course--always!" she returned, with a forcible emphasis on the first word. "But it has never been open warfare between me and Miss Delves, Anne; you must understand that. Should anything of the sort arise, she would have to quit the house. A bitter pill that would be, for she has no money, and would have to go out as housekeeper in reality, or something of the kind. My occupation would be gone then."

"What occupation?"

"That of saying and doing all sorts of wild things to make her think ill of me. She goes and whispers them to Mr. Edwin Barley. He listens to her--I know he does, and that provokes me. Well, little pet, what are those honest brown eyes of yours longing to say?"

"Why did you marry him, Selina?"

"People say for money, Anne. I say it was fate."

"He persuaded you, perhaps?"

"He did. Persuaded, pressed, worried me. He was two years talking me into it. Better, perhaps, that he had given his great love elsewhere! Better for him, possibly, that he had married Charlotte Delves!"

"But did he want to marry Charlotte Delves?"

"Never. I don't believe that even the thought ever entered his head. The servants say she used to hope it; but they rattle nonsense at random. Edwin Barley never cared but for two things in the world: myself and money."

"Money?"

"Money, Anne. Pretty little pieces of gold and silver; new, crisp bank-notes; yellow old deeds of parchment, representing houses and lands. He cares for money almost as much as for me; and he will care for it more than for me in time. Who's this?"

It was Philip King. He came in, looking more cross, if possible, than he did the previous night. His face shone out pale and sickly, too, in the bright morning sun. Selina spoke, but did not offer her hand.

"Good-morning, Mr. King; I hope you feel better to-day. You did not get down to breakfast, I understand. Neither did I."

"I did get down to breakfast," he answered, speaking as if something had very much put him out. "I took it with Mr. Edwin Barley in his study."

"Leaving George Heneage to breakfast alone. You two polite men! Had I known that, I would have come down and breakfasted with him."

That she said this in a spirit of mischief, in a manner most especially calculated to provoke him, I saw by the saucy look that shot from her bright blue eyes.

"I think you and Heneage breakfast together quite often enough as it is, Mrs. Edwin Barley."

"You do? Then, if I were you, sir, I would have the grace to keep such thoughts to myself: or tell them to Mr. Edwin Barley, if you like. He might offer you a premium for them--who knows?"

Philip King was getting into an angry heat.

"I hope you have tolerably strong shoulders," she resumed, as if struck with some sudden thought.

"Why so?"

"George Heneage intends to try his cane upon them on the next convenient day."

His lips turned white.

"Mrs. Barley, what do you mean?"

"Just what I say. You have taken to peep and pry after me--whether set on by any one, or from some worthy motive of your own, you best know. It will not serve you, Philip King. If there is one thing more detestable than another, it is that of spying. I happened to mention this new pastime of yours before Mr. Heneage, and he observed that he had a cane somewhere. That's all."

The intense aggravation with which she said it was enough to rouse the ire of one less excitable than Philip King. He was breaking out in abuse of Mr. Heneage, when the latter happened to come in. A few menacing words, a dark look or two from either side, and then came the quarrel.

A quarrel that terrified me. I ran out of the room; I ran back again; I don't know what I did. Mrs. Edwin Barley seemed almost as excited as they were: it was not the first time I had seen her in a passion. She called out (taking the words from the old ballad, "Lord Thomas"), that she cared more for the little finger of George Heneage than for the whole body of ill-conditioned Philip King. I knew it was only one of her wild sayings: when in a passion she did not mind what she said, or whom she offended. I knew that this present quarrel was altogether Selina's fault--that her love of provocation had brought it on. Mr. Edwin Barley had gone over to his brother's; and it was well, perhaps, that it was so.

Jemima appeared on the stairs, carrying up a pail--there was no second staircase to the house. "What is the matter, Miss Hereford?" she asked. "Goodness me! how you are trembling!"

"They are quarrelling in there--Mr. Heneage and Mr. King. I am afraid they will fight."

"Oh, it has come to that, has it?" said Jemima, carelessly. "I thought it would. Never mind them, Miss Hereford; they'll not hurt you."

She tripped upstairs with the pail, as if a quarrel were the most natural event in the world, and I looked into the room again. Mr. Heneage held Philip King by the collar of the coat.

"Mark me!" he was saying. "If I catch you dodging my movements again, if I hear of your being insolent to this lady, I'll shoot you with as little compunction as I would a partridge. There!"

"What is Mrs. Edwin Barley to you, that you should interfere?" retorted Philip King, his voice raised to a shriek. "And she! Why does she set herself to provoke me every hour of my life?"

"I interfere of right: by my long friendship with her, and by the respect I bear for her mother's memory. Now you know."

Mr. Heneage gave a shake to the collar as he spoke, and I ran up to my room, there to sob out my terror. My heart was beating, my breath catching itself in gasps. In my own peaceful home I had never seen or heard the faintest shadow of a quarrel.

By-and-by Jemima came in search of me. Mrs. Edwin Barley was waiting for me to go out in the pony-carriage. I bathed my face and my red eyes, was dressed, and went down. At the door stood a low open basket-chaise, large and wide, drawn by a pony. Mrs. Edwin Barley was already in it, and Mr. Heneage stood waiting for me. He drove, and I sat on a stool at their feet. We went through green lanes, and over a pleasant common. Not a word was said about the recent quarrel; but part of the time they spoke together in an undertone, and I did not try to hear. We were away about two hours.

"You can run about the grounds until your dinner's ready, if you like, Anne," Mrs. Barley said to me when we alighted. "I dare say you feel cramped, sitting so long on that low seat."

She went in with Mr. Heneage, the footman saying that some ladies were waiting. I ran away amidst the trees, and presently lost myself. As I stood, wondering which way to take, Mr. Edwin Barley and Philip King came through, arm-in-arm, on their way home, talking together eagerly. I thought Philip King was telling about the quarrel.

It was no doubt unfortunate that my acquaintance with Mr. Edwin Barley should have begun with a fright. I was a most impressionable child, and could not get over that first fear. Every time I met him, my heart, as the saying runs, leaped into my mouth. He saw me and spoke.

"So you have got back, Anne Hereford?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, my lips feeling as if they were glued together.

"Where's Mrs. Barley?"

"She has gone indoors, sir." -

"And George Heneage. Where's he?"

"He went in also, sir. John said some visitors were waiting to see Mrs. Barley."

And to that he made no rejoinder, but went on with Philip King.

Nothing more occurred that day to disturb the peace of the house. A gentleman, who called in the afternoon, was invited to dine, and stayed. Mrs. Edwin Barley rang for me as soon as she went up to the drawing-room. I thought how lovely she looked in her black net dress, and with the silver ornaments on her neck and arms.

"What did you think of Mr. Philip King's temper this morning, Anne?" she asked, as she stood near the fire and sipped the cup of coffee that John had brought in.

"Oh, Selina! I never was so alarmed before."

"You little goose! But it was a specimen, was it not, of gentlemanly bearing?"

"I think--I mean I thought--that it was not Mr. King who was in fault," I said; not, however, liking to say it.

"You thought it was George Heneage, I suppose. Ah! but you don't know all, Anne; the scenes behind the curtain are hidden from you. Philip King has wanted a chastisement this fortnight past; and he got it. Unless he alters his policy, he will get one of a different nature. Mr. Heneage will as surely cane him as that I stand here."

"Why do you like Mr. Heneage so much, Selina?"

"I like him better than any one I know, Anne. Not with the sort of liking, however, that Mr. Philip King would insinuate, the worthy youth! Though it is great fun," she added, with a merry laugh, "to let the young gentleman think I do. I have known George Heneage a long time: he used to visit at Keppe-Carew, and be as one of ourselves. I could not like a brother, if I had one, more than I do George Heneage. And Mr. Philip King and his ally, Charlotte Delves, tell tales of me to my husband! It is as good as a comedy."

A comedy! If she could only have foreseen the comedy's ending!

On the following morning, Saturday, they all went out shooting again. Mrs. Edwin Barley had visitors in the forenoon, and afterwards she drove over to Hallam in the pony carriage, with the little boy-groom Tom, not taking me. I was anywhere: with Charlotte Delves; with Jemima; reading a fairytale I found; playing "Poor Mary Anne" on the piano. As it grew towards dusk, and no one came home, I went strolling down the avenue, and met the pony carriage. Only Tom was in it.

"Where is Mrs. Edwin Barley?"

"She is coming on, miss, with Mr. Heneage. He came up to the lodge-gate just as we got back."

I went to the end of the avenue, but did not see her. The woman at the lodge said they had taken the path on the left, which would equally bring them to the house, though by a greater round. I ran along it, and came to the pretty summerhouse that stood where the ornamental grounds were railed off from the pasture at the back and the wood beyond. At the foot of the summer-house steps my aunt stood, straining her eyes on a letter, in the fading light; George Heneage was looking over her shoulder, a gun in his hand.

"You see what they say," he observed. "Rather peremptory, is it not?"

"George, you must go by the first train that starts from Nettleby," she returned. "You should not lose a minute; the pony carriage will take you. Is that you, Anne?"

"I would give something to know what's up, and why I am called away in this fashion," was his rejoinder, spoken angrily. "They might let me alone until the term I was invited for here is at an end."

Mrs. Edwin Barley laughed. "Perhaps our friend, Philip King, has favoured Heneage Grange with a communication, telling of your fancied misdoings."

No doubt she spoke it lightly, neither believing her own words nor heeding the fashion of them. But George Heneage took them seriously; and it unfortunately happened that she ran up the steps at the same moment. A stir was heard in the summer-house. Mr. Heneage dashed in in time to see Philip King escaping by the opposite door.

The notion that he had been "spying" was, of course, taken up by Mr. Heneage. With a passionate word, he was speeding after him; but Mrs. Edwin Barley caught his arm.

"George, you shall not go. There might be murder done between you."

"I'll pay him off; I'll make him remember it! Pray release me. I beg your pardon, Selina."

For he had flung her hand away with rather too much force, in his storm of passion; and was crashing through the opposite door and down the steps, in pursuit of Philip King. Both of them made straight for the wood; but Philip King had a good start, and nothing in his hand; George Heneage had his gun. Selina alluded to it.

"I hope it is not loaded! Flying along with that rate, he might strike it against a tree, and be shot before he knows it. Anne, look here! You are fleeter than I. Run crosswise over that grass to the corner entrance; it will take you to a path in the wood where you will just meet them. Tell Mr. Heneage, from me, that I command him to come back, and to let Philip King alone. I command it, in his mother's name."

I did not dare to refuse, and yet scarcely dared to go. I ran along, my heart beating. Arrived at the entrance indicated I plunged in, and went on down many turns and windings amidst the trees. They were not very dense, and were intersected by narrow paths. But no one could I see.

And now arrived a small calamity. I had lost my way. How to trace an exit from the wood I knew not, and felt really frightened. Down I sat on an old stump, and cried. What if I should have to stay there until morning!

Not so. A slight noise made me look up. Who should be standing near, his back against a tree, smoking a cigar and smiling at me, but Philip King.

"What is the grief, Miss Anne? Have you met a wolf?"

"I can't find my way out, sir."

"Oh, I'll soon show you that. We are almost close to the south border. You--"

He stopped suddenly, turned his head, and looked attentively in a direction to the left. At that moment there came a report, something seemed to whizz through the air, and strike Philip King. He leaped up, and then fell to the ground with a scream. This was followed, so instantly that it seemed to be part and parcel of the scream, by a distant exclamation of dismay or of warning. From whom did it come?

Though not perfectly understanding what had occurred, or that Philip King had received a fatal shot, I screamed also, and fell on my knees; not fainting, but with a horrible sensation of fear, such as perhaps no child ever before experienced. And the next thing I saw was Mr. Edwin Barley, coming towards us with his gun, not quite from the same direction as the shot, but very near it. I had been thinking that George Heneage must have done it, but another question arose now to my terrified heart: Could it have been Mr. Edwin Barley?

"Philip, what is it?" he asked, as he came up. "Has any one fired at you?"

"George Heneage," was the faint rejoinder. "I saw him. He stood there."

With a motion of the eyes, rather than with aught else, poor Philip King pointed to the left, and Mr. Edwin Barley turned and looked, laying his gun against a tree. Nothing was to be seen.

"Are you sure, Philip?"

"I tell it you with my dying lips. I saw him."

Not another word. Mr. Edwin Barley raised his head, hut the face had grown still, and had an awful shade upon it--the same shade that mamma's first wore after she was dead. Mr. Barley put the head gently down, and stood looking at him. All in a moment he caught sight of me, and I think it startled him.

"Are you there, you little imp?"

But the word, ugly though it sounds, was spoken in rough surprise, not in unkindness. I cried and shook, too terrified to give any answer. Mr. Barley stood up before Philip King, so that I no longer saw him.

"What were you doing in the wood?"

"I lost my way, and could not get out, sir," I sobbed, trembling lest he should press for further details. "That gentleman saw me, and was saying he would show me the way out, when he fell."

"Had he been here long?"

"I don't know. I was crying a good while, and not looking up. It was only a minute ago that I saw him standing there."

"Did you see Mr. Heneage fire?"

"Oh no, sir. I did not see Mr. Heneage at all."

He took my hand, walked with me a few steps, and showed me a path that was rather wider than the others.

"Go straight down here until you come to a cross-path, running right and left: it is not far. Take the one to the right, and it will bring you out in front of the house. Do you understand, little one?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, though in truth too agitated to understand distinctly, and only anxious to get away from him. Suppose he should shoot me! was running through my foolish thoughts.

"Make speed to the house, then," he resumed, "and see Charlotte Delves. Tell her what has occurred: that Philip King has been shot, and that she must send help to convey him home. She must also send at once for the doctor, and for the police. Can you remember all that?"

"Oh yes, sir. Is he much hurt?"

"He is dead, child. Now be as quick as you can. Do not tell your aunt what has happened: it would alarm her."

I sped along quicker than any child ever sped before, and soon came to the cross-path. But there I made a mistake: I went blindly on to the left, instead of to the right, and I came suddenly upon Mr. Heneage. He was standing quite still, leaning on his gun, his finger on his lip to impose silence and caution on me, and his face looked as I had never seen it look before, white as death.

"Whose voice was that I heard talking to you?" he asked, in a whisper.

"Mr. Edwin Barley's. Oh, sir, don't stop me; Mr. King is dead!"

"Dead! Mr. King dead?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Edwin Barley says so, and I am on my way to the house to tell Miss Delves to send for the police. Mr. Heneage, did you do it?"

"I! You silly child!" he returned, in accents of rebuke. "What in the world put that in your head? I have been looking for Philip King--waiting here in the hope that he might pass. There, go along, child, and don't tremble so. That way: you are coming from the home, this."

Back I went, my fears increasing. To an imaginative, excitable and timid nature, such as mine, all this was simply terrible. I did gain the house, but only to rush into the arms of Jemima, who happened to be in the hall, and fall into a fit of hysterical, nervous sobbing, clinging to her tightly, as if I could never let her go again.

A pretty messenger, truly, in time of need!

Philip had arrived from another quarter. A knot of labourers on the estate, going home from work, happened to choose the road through the wood, and Mr. Edwin Barley heard them.

One of them, a young man they called Duff, was at the house almost as soon as I. He came into the hall, and saw me clinging to Jemima. Nothing could have stopped my threatened fit of hysterics so effectually as an interruption. Duff told his tale. The young heir had been shot in the wood, he said. "Shot dead!"

"The young heir!" cried Jemima, with a cry. She was at no loss to understand who was meant: it was what Philip King had been mostly styled since his brother's death. Charlotte Delves came forward as Duff was speaking. Duff took off his felt hat in deference to her, and explained.

She turned as white as a sheet--white as George Heneage had looked--and sat down on a chair. Duff had not mentioned George Heneage's name, only Mr. Edwin Barley's: perhaps she thought it was the latter who had fired the shot.

"It must have been an accident, Duff. They are so careless with their guns!"

"No, ma'am, it was murder! Leastways, that's what they are saying."

- "He cannot be dead."

"He's as dead as a door-nail!" affirmed Duff, with decision. "I can't be mistaken in a dead man. I've seen enough of 'em, father being the grave-digger. They are bringing him on, ma'am, now."

Even as Duff spoke, sounds of the approach stole on the air from the distance--the measured tread of feet that bear a burden. It came nearer and nearer; and Philip King, or what was left of him, was laid on the large table in the hall. As is the case in some country-houses, the hall was furnished like a plain room. Duff, making ready, had pushed the table close to the window, between the wall and the entrance-door, shutting me into a corner. I sank down on the matting, not daring to move.

"Light the lamp," said Mr. Edwin Barley.

The news had spread; the servants crowded in; some of the women began to shriek. It became one indescribable scene of confusion, exclamations, and alarm. Mr. Edwin Barley turned round, in anger.

"Clear out, all of you!" he said, roughly. "What do you mean by making this uproar? You men can stay in the barn; you may be wanted," he added, to the out-door labourers.

They crowded out at the hall-door; the servants disappeared through the opposite one. Mr. Edwin Barley was one who brooked no delay in being obeyed. Miss Delves remained, and she drew near.

"How did it happen?" she asked, in a low voice, that did not sound much like hers.

"Get me some brandy, and a teaspoon!" was Mr. Edwin Barley's rejoinder. "He is certainly dead, as I believe; but we must try restoratives, for all that. Make haste; bring it in a wine-glass."

She ran into the dining-room, and in the same moment Mrs. Edwin Barley came lightly down the stairs. She had on her dinner-dress, black silk trimmed with crape, no ornaments yet, and her lovely light hair was falling down over her bare neck. The noise, as it appeared, had disturbed her in the midst of dressing.

"What is all this disturbance?" she began, as she tripped across the hall; and it was the first intimation Mr. Edwin Barley had of her presence. He might have arrested her, had there been time; but she was bending over the table too soon. Believing, as she said afterwards, that it was a load of game lying there, it must have been a great shock; the grey-and-brown woollen plaid they had flung over him, from the neck downwards, looking not unlike the colour of partridge feathers in the dim light. There was no gas in the house; oil was burnt in the hall and passages--wax candles in the sitting-rooms.

"It is Philip King!" she cried, with a sort of shriek. "What is the matter? What is amiss with him?"

"Don't you see what it is?" returned Mr. Edwin Barley, who was all this while chafing the poor cold hands. "He has been shot in the chest; marked out in the wood, and shot down like a dog."

A cry of dread--of fear--broke from her. She began to tremble violently. "How was it done, Edwin? Who did it?"

"You."

"I!" came from her ashy lips. "Are you going mad, Edwin Barley?"

"Selina, this is as surely the result of your work as though you had actually drawn the trigger. I hope you are satisfied with it!"

"How can you be so cruel?" she asked, her bosom heaving, her breath coming from her in gasps.

He had spoken to her in a low, calm tone--not an angry one. It changed to sorrow now.

"I thought harm would come of it; I have thought so these two days; not, however, such harm as this. You have been urging that fellow a little too much against this defenceless ward and relative of mine; but I could not have supposed he would carry it on to murder. Philip King would have died quite soon enough without that, Selina; he was following Reginald with galloping strides."

Charlotte Delves returned with a teaspoon and the brandy in a wine-glass. As is sure to be the case in an emergency, there had been an unavoidable delay. The spirit-stand was not in its place, and for a minute or two she had been unable to find it. Mr. Edwin Barley took up a teaspoonful. His wife drew away.

"Was it an accident, or--or--done deliberately?" inquired Charlotte Delves, as she stood there, holding the glass.

"It was deliberate murder."

"Duff said so. But who did it?"

"It is of no use, Charlotte," was all the reply Mr. Barley made, as he gave her back the tea-spoon. "He is quite dead."

Hasty footsteps were heard coming along the avenue, and up the steps to the door. They proved to be those of Mr. Lowe, the surgeon, from Hallam.

"I was walking over to Smith's to dinner, Mr. Edwin Barley, and met one of your labourers coming for me," he exclaimed in a loud tone, as he entered. "He said some accident had happened to young King."

"Accident enough," said Mr. Edwin Barley. "Here he lies." For a few moments nothing more was said. Mr. Lowe was stooping over the table.

"I was trying to give him some brandy when you came in."

"He'll never take brandy or anything else again," was the reply of Mr. Lowe. "He is dead."

"As I feared. Was as sure of it, in fact, as a non-professional man can well be. I believe that he died in the wood, a minute after the shot struck him."

"How did it happen?" asked the surgeon. "These young fellows are so careless!"

"I'll tell you all I know," said Mr. Barley. "We had been out shooting--he, I, and Heneage, with the two keepers. He and Heneage were not upon good terms; they were sour with each other as could be; had been cross and crabbed all day. Coming home, Heneage dropped us; whether to go forward, or to lag behind, I am unable to say. After that, we met Smith--as he can tell you, if you are going to his house. He stopped me about that right-of-common business, and began discussing what would be our better mode of proceeding against the fellows. Philip King, whom it did not interest, said he should go on, and Smith and I sat down on the bench outside the beer shop, and called for a pint of cider. Half-an-hour we may have sat there, and then I started for home through the wood, which cuts off the corner--"

"Philip King having gone forward, did you say?" interrupted the surgeon.

"Yes. I was nearly through the wood, when I heard a slight movement near me, and then a gun was fired. A terrible scream--the scream of a man, Lowe--succeeded in an opposite direction. I pushed through the trees, and saw Philip King. He had leaped up with the shot, and was then falling to the ground. I went to his succour, and asked who had done it. 'George Heneage,' was his answer. He had seen him raise his gun, take aim, and fire upon him."

Crouching down there on the matting, trembling though I was, an impulse prompted me to interrupt: to say that Mr. Edwin Barley's words went beyond the truth. All that Philip King had said was, that he saw George Heneage, saw him stand there. But fear was more powerful than impulse, and I remained silent. How could I dare contradict Mr. Edwin Barley?

"It must have been an accident," said Mr. Lowe. "Heneage must have aimed at a bird."

"There's no doubt that it was deliberate murder!" replied Mr. Edwin Barley. "My ward affirmed it to me with his dying lips. They were his own words. I expressed a doubt, as you are doing. 'It was Heneage,' he said; 'I tell it you with my dying lips.' A bad man!--a villain!" Mr. Barley emphatically added. "Another day or two, and I should have kicked him out of my house; I waited but a decent pretext."

"If he is that, why did you have him in it?" asked the surgeon.

"Because it is only recently that my eyes have been opened to him and his ways. This poor fellow," pointing to the dead, "lifted their scales for me in the first instance. Pity the other is not the one to be lying here!"

Sounds of hysterical emotion were heard on the stairs: they came from Mrs. Edwin Barley. It appeared that she had been sitting on the lowest step all this time, her face bent on her knees, and must have heard what passed. Mr. Barley, as if wishing to offer an apology for her, said she had just looked on Philip King's face, and it had frightened her much.

Mr. Lowe tried to persuade her to retire from the scene; but she would not, and there she sat on, growing calm by degrees.

The surgeon measured something with a teaspoon into a wineglass, filled it up with cold water, and made her drink it. He then took his leave, saying that he would call again in the course of the evening. Not a minute had he been gone, when Mr. Martin burst into the hall.

"What is this report?" he cried, in agitation. "People are saying that Philip King is killed."

"They might have said murdered," said Mr. Edwin Barley. "Heneage shot him in the wood."

"Heneage!"

"Heneage. Took aim, and fired at him, and killed him. There never was a case of more deliberate murder."

That Mr. Edwin Barley was actuated by intense animus as he said this, the tone proved.

"Poor fellow!" said the clergyman, gently, as he leaned over him and touched his face. "I have seen for some days they were not cordial with each other. What ill-blood could have been between them?"

"Heneage had better explain that when he makes his defence," said Mr. Edwin Barley, grimly.

"It is only a night or two ago that we were speculating on his health, upon his taking a profession; we might have spared ourselves the pains, poor lad. I asked you, who was his heir-at-law, little thinking another would so soon inherit."

Mr. Edwin Barley made no reply.

"Why--good heavens!--is that Mrs. Barley sitting there?" he inquired in a low tone, as his eyes fell on the distant stairs.

"She won't move away. These things do terrify women. Don't notice her, Martin: she will be better left to herself."

"Upon my word, this is a startling and sudden blow," resumed the clergyman, again recurring to the death. "But you must surely be mistaken in calling it murder."

"There's no mistake about it: it was wilful murder. I am as sure of it as though I had seen the aim taken," persisted Mr. Barley. "And I will pursue Heneage to the death."

"Have you secured him? If it really is murder, he must answer for it. Where is he?"

Mr. Barley spoke a passionate word. It was a positive fact--account for it, any one who can--that until that moment he had never given a thought to the securing of George Heneage. "What a fool I have been!" he exclaimed, "what an idiot! He has had time to escape."

"He cannot have escaped far."

"Stay here, will you, Martin. I'll send the labourers after him; he may be hiding in the wood until the night grows darker."

Mr. Edwin Barley hastened from the hall, and the clergyman bent over the table again. I had my face turned to him, and was scarcely conscious, until it had passed, of something dark that glided from the back of the hall, and followed Mr. Barley out. With him gone, to whom I had taken so unaccountable a dislike and dread, it was my favourable moment for escape; I seemed to fear him more than poor Philip King on the table. But nervous terror held possession of me still, and in moving I cried out in spite of myself. The clergyman looked round.

"I declare it is little Miss Hereford!" he said, very kindly, as he took my hand. "What brought you there, my dear?"

I sobbed out the explanation. That I had been pushed into the corner by the table, and was afraid to move. "Don't tell, sir, please! Mr. Edwin Barley might be angry with me. Don't tell him I was there."

"He would not be angry at a little girl's very natural fears," answered Mr. Martin, stroking my hair. "But I will not tell him. Will you stay by your aunt, Mrs. Edwin Barley?"

"Yes, please, sir."

"But where is Mrs. Barley?" he resumed, as he led me towards the stairs.

"I was wondering, too," interposed Charlotte Delves, who stood at the dining-room door. "A minute ago she was still sitting there. I turned into the room for a moment, and when I came back she was gone."

"She must have gone upstairs, Miss Delves."

"I suppose she has, Mr. Martin," was Miss Delves's reply. But a thought came over me that it must have been Mrs. Edwin Barley who had glided out at the hall-door.

And, in point of fact, it was. She was sought for upstairs, and could not be found; she was sought for downstairs, all in vain. Whither had she gone? On what errand was she bent? One of those raw, damp fogs, prevalent in the autumn months, had come on, making the air wet as if with rain, and she had no out-door things on, no bonnet, and her black silk dress had a low body and short sleeves. Was she with her husband, searching the wood for George Heneage?

The dark oak-door that shut out the passage leading to the domains of the servants was pushed open, and Jemima's head appeared at it. I ran and laid hold of her.

"Oh, Jemima, let me stay by you!"

"Hark!" she whispered, putting her arm round me. "There are horses galloping up to the house."

Two police-officers, mounted. They gave their horses in charge to one of the men-servants, and came into the hall, the scabbards of their swords clanking against the steps.

"I don't like the look of them," whispered Jemima. "Let us go away."

She took me to the kitchen. Sarah, Mary, and the cook were in it; the latter a tall, stout woman, with a rosy colour and black eyes. Her chief concern seemed to be about the dinner.

"Look here," she exclaimed to Jemima, as she stood over her saucepans, "everything's a-spiling. Who's to know whether they'll have it served in one hour or in two?"

"I should think they wouldn't have it served at all," returned Jemima: "that sight in the hall's enough dinner for them today, one would suppose. The police are come now."

"Ah, it is bad, I know," said the cook. "And the going to look at it took everything else out of my head, worse luck to me! I forgot my soles were on the fire, and when I got back they were burnt to the pan. I've had to scrape 'em now, and put 'em into wine sauce. Who's this coming in?"

It was Miss Delves. The cook appealed to her about the dinner.

"It won't be eatable, ma'am, if it's kept much longer. Some of the dishes is half cold, and some's dried up to a scratchin'."

"There's no help for it, cook; you must manage it in the best way you can," was Miss Delves's reply. "It is a dreadful thing to have happened, but I suppose dinner must be served all the same for the master and Mrs. Edwin Barley."

"Miss Delves, is it true what they are saying--that it was Mr. Heneage who did it?" inquired Sarah.

"Suppose you trouble yourself with your own affairs, and let alone what does not concern you," was Miss Delves's reprimand.

She left the kitchen. Jemima made a motion of contempt after her, and gave the door a bang.

"She'll put in her word against Mr. Heneage, I know; for she didn't like him. But I am confident it was never he that did it--unless his gun went off accidental."

For full an hour by the clock we stayed in the kitchen, uninterrupted, the cook reducing herself to a state of despair over the delayed dinner. The men-servants had been sent out, some to one place, some to another. The cook served us some coffee and bread-and-butter, but I don't think any one of us touched the latter. I thought by that time my aunt must surely have come in, and asked Jemima to take me upstairs to her. A policeman was in the hall as we passed across the back of it, and Charlotte Delves and Mr. Martin were sitting in the dining-room, the door open. Mrs. Edwin Barley was nowhere to be found, and we went back to the kitchen. I began to cry; a dreadful fear came upon me that she might have gone away for ever, and left me to the companionship of Mr. Edwin Barley.

"Come and sit down here, child," said the cook, in a motherly way, as she placed a low stool near the fire. "It's enough to frighten her, poor little stranger, to have this happen, just as she comes into the house."

"I say, though, where can the mistress be?" Jemima said to her, in a low tone, as I drew the stool into the shade and sat down, leaning my head against the wall.

Presently Miss Delves's bell rang. The servants said they always knew her ring--it came with a jerk. Jemima went to answer it. It was for some hot water, which she took up. Some one was going to have brandy-and-water, she said; perhaps Mr. Martin--she did not know. Her master was in the hall then, and Mr. Barley, of the Oaks, was with him.

"Who's Mr. Barley of the Oaks, Jemima?" I asked.

"He is master's elder brother, miss. He lives at the Oaks, about three miles from here. Such a nice place it is--ten times better than this. When the old gentleman died, Mr. Barley came into the Oaks, and Mr. Edwin into this."

Then there was silence again for another half-hour. I sat with my eyes closed, and heard them say I was asleep. The young farm labourer, Duff, came in at last.

"Well," said he, "it have been a useless chase. I wonder whether I am wanted for anything else."

"Where have you been?" asked Jemima.

"Scouring the wood, seven of us, in search of Mr. Heneage: and them two mounted police is a-dashing about the roads. We haven't found him."

"Duff, Mr. Heneage no more did it than you did."

"That's all you know about it," was Duff's answer. "Master says he did."

"Have a cup of coffee, Duff?" asked the cook.

"Thank ye," said Duff. "I'd be glad on't."

She was placing the cup before him, when he suddenly leaned forward from the chair he had taken, speaking in a covert whisper.

"I say, who do you think was in the wood, a-scouring it, up one path and down another, as much as ever we was?"

"Who?" asked the servants in a breath.

"The young missis. She hadn't an earthly thing on her but just what she sits in, indoors. Her hair was down, and her neck and arms was bare; and there she was, a-racing up and down like one demented."

"Tush!" said the cook. "You must have seen double. What should bring young madam dancing about the wood, Duff, at this time o' night?"

"I tell ye I see her. I see her three times over. Maybe she was looking for Mr. Heneage, too. At any rate, there she was, and with nothing on, as if she'd started out in a hurry, and had forgot to dress herself. And if she don't catch a cold, it's odd to me," added Duff. "The fog's as thick as pea-soup, and wets you worse than rain. 'Twas enough to give her her death."

Duff's report was true. As he spoke, a bell called Jemima up again. She came back, laid hold of me without speaking, and took me to the drawing-room. Mrs. Edwin Barley stood there, just come in; she was shaking like a leaf, with the damp and cold, her hair dripping wet. When she had seen her husband leave the hall in search of George Heneage, an impulse came over her to follow and interpose between the anger of the two, should they meet. At least, partly this, partly to look after George Heneage herself, and warn him to escape. She gave me this explanation openly.

"I could not find him," she said, kneeling down before the fire, and holding out her shivering arms to the blaze. "I hope and trust he has escaped. One man's life is enough for me to have upon my hands, without having two."

"Oh, Aunt Selina! you did not take Philip King's life!"

"No, I did not take it. And I have been guilty of no intentional wrong. But I did set the one against the other, Anne--in my vanity and wilfulness."

Looking back to the child's eyes with which I saw things then, and judging of these same things with my woman's experience now, I can but hold Selina Barley entirely to blame. An indulged daughter, born when her sister Ursula was nearly grown up, she had been suffered to have her own way at Keppe-Carew, and grew up to think the world was made for her. Dangerously attractive, fond to excess of admiration, she had probably encouraged Philip King's boyish fancy, and then turned round upon him for it. At the previous Easter, on his former visit, she had been all smiles and sweetness; this time she had done nothing but turn him into ridicule. "What is sport to you may be death to me," said the fly to the spider. It might not have mattered so much from her, this ridicule; but she pressed George Heneage into the service: and Philip King was not of a disposition to bear it tamely. His weak health made him appear somewhat of a coward; he was not strong enough to take the law into his own hands, and repay Mr. Heneage with personal chastisement. Selina's liking for George Heneage was no doubt great; but it was not an improper liking, although the world--the little world at Mr. Edwin Barley's--might have wished to deem it so. Before she married Mr. Edwin Barley, she refused George Heneage, and laughed at him for proposing to her. She should wed a rich man, she told him, or none at all. It was Mr. Edwin Barley himself who invited Heneage to his house, and also Philip King, as it most unfortunately happened. His wife, in her wilful folly--I had almost written her wilful wickedness--played them off one upon another. The first day they met, Philip King took umbrage at some remark of Mr. Heneage's, and Selina, liking the one and disliking the other, forthwith began. A few days further on, and young King so far forgot his good manners as to tell her she "liked that Coxcomb Heneage too much." The reproach made her laugh; but she, nevertheless, out of pure mischief, did what she could to confirm Philip King in the impression. He, Philip King, took to talking of this to Miss Delves; he took to watching Selina and George Heneage; there could be little doubt that he carried tales of his observation to Mr. Edwin Barley, which only incited Selina to persevere; the whole thing amused her immensely. What passed between Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Barley in private about it, whether anything or nothing, was never known. At the moment of the accident he was exceedingly vexed with her; incensed may be the proper word.

And poor Philip King! Perhaps, after all, his death may have been a mistake--if it was in truth George Heneage that it proceeded from. Circumstances, as they came out, seemed to say that he had not been "spying," but only taking the short cut through the summer-house on his way home from shooting; an unusual route, it's true, but not an impossible one. Seeing them on the other side when he entered it, he waited until they should proceed onwards; but Mrs. Barley's sudden run up the steps sent him away. Not that he would avoid them; only make his escape, without their seeing him, lest he should be accused of the very thing they did accuse him of--spying. But he was too late; the creaking of the outer door betrayed him. At least this was the opinion taken up by Mr. Martin, later, when Selina told the whole truth to him, under the seal of secrecy.

But Mrs. Edwin Barley was kneeling before the fire in the drawing-room, with her dripping hair; and I standing by her looking on; and that first terrible night was not over.

"Selina, why did you stay out in the wet fog?"

"I was looking for him, I tell you, Anne."

"But you had nothing on. You might have caught your death, Duff said."

"And what if I had?" she sharply interrupted. "I would as soon die as live."

It was one of her customary random retorts, meaning nothing. Before more was said, strange footsteps and voices were heard on the stairs. Selina started up, and looked at herself in the glass.

"I can't let them see me like this," she muttered, clutching her drooping hair. "You wait here, Anne."

Darting to the side-door she had spoken of as leading to her bedroom, she pulled it open with a wrench, as if a bolt had given way, and disappeared, leaving me standing on the hearthrug.

He who first entered the room was a gentleman of middle age and size. His complexion was healthy and ruddy; his short dark hair, sprinkled with grey, was combed down upon the forehead: his countenance was good-natured and simple. This was Mr. Barley of the Oaks. Not the least resemblance did he bear to his brother. Following him was one in an official dress, who was probably superior to a common policeman, for his manners were good, and Mr. Barley called him "Sir." It was not the same who had been in the hall.

"Oh, this--this must be the little girl," observed Mr. Barley. "Are you Mrs. Edwin's niece, my dear--Miss Hereford?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you knew where she is?"

"In her bedroom, I think, sir."

It had transpired that a quarrel had taken place the previous Friday between Mr. Heneage and Philip King; and the officer had now been in the kitchen to question Jemima. Jemima disclaimed all knowledge of the affair, beyond the fact that she had heard of it from little Miss Hereford, whom she saw on the stairs, crying and frightened. He had now come to question me.

"Now, my little maid, try and recollect," said the officer, drawing me to him. "What did they quarrel about?"

"I don't know, sir," I answered. And I spoke the literal truth, for I had not understood at the time.

"Can you not recollect?"

"I can recollect," I said, looking at him, and feeling that I did not shrink from him, though he was a policeman. "Mr. King seemed to have done something wrong, for Mr. Heneage was angry with him, and called him a spy; but I did not know what it was that he had done. I was too frightened to listen; I ran out of the room."

"Then you did not hear what the quarrel was about?"

"I did not understand, sir. Except that they said that Mr. King was mean, and a spy."

"They!" he repeated, catching me up quickly; "who else was in the room?"

"My Aunt Selina."

"Then she took Mr. Heneage's part?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did the quarrel end? Amicably, or in ill-feeling?"

"I don't know, sir. I went away, and stayed in my bedroom."

"My sister-in-law, Mrs. Edwin, may be able to tell you more about it, as she was present," interposed Mr. Barley.

"I dare say she can," was the officer's reply. "It seems a curious thing altogether--that two gentlemen should be visiting at a house, and one should shoot the other. How long had they been staying here?"

"Let's see," said Mr. Barley, rubbing his forefinger upon his forehead. "It must be a month, I fancy, sir, since they came. Heneage was here first: some days before Philip."

"Were they previously acquainted?"

"I--think--not," said Mr. Barley, speaking with hesitation. "Heneage was here on a short visit in the middle of the summer, but not Philip: whereas Philip was here at Easter, and the other was not. No, sir, I believe they were not acquainted before, but my brother can tell you."

"Who is this Mr. Heneage?"

"Don't you know? He is the son of the member for Wexborough. Oh, he is of very good family--very. A sad blow it will be for them, if things turn out as black as they look. Will he get clear off, think you?"

"You may depend upon it, he would not have got off far, but for this confounded fog that has come on," warmly replied the police-officer. "We shall have him to-morrow, no doubt."

"I hardly ever saw such a fog at this time of year," observed Mr. Barley. "I couldn't see a yard before me as I came along. Upon my word, it almost seems as if it had come on purpose to screen him."

"Was he a pleasant man, this Heneage?"

"One of the nicest fellows you ever met, sir," was Mr. Barley's impulsive reply. "The last week or two Edwin seems to have taken some spite against him; I don't know what was up between them, for my part: but I liked Heneage, what I saw of him, and thought him an uncommon good fellow. Mrs. Edwin Barley has known him a long time; my brother only recently. They all met in London last spring."

"Heneage derives no benefit in any way, by property or otherwise, from his death?" observed the policeman, speaking half as a question, half as a soliloquy.

"It's not likely, sir. The only person to benefit is my brother. He comes in for it all."

The officer raised his eyes. "Your brother comes in for young King's fortune, Mr. Barley?"

"Yes, he does. And I'll be bound he never gave a thought to inheriting it. How should he, from a young and hearty lad like Philip? Edwin has croaked about Philip's health of late, said he was consumptive, and going the way of his brother Reginald; but I saw nothing amiss with Philip."

"May I ask why you don't inherit, Mr. Barley, being the elder brother?"

"He was no blood relation to me. My father married twice, I was the son of the first wife; Edwin of the second; and Philip King's father and Edwin's mother were cousins. Philip had no male relative living except my brother, therefore he comes in for the estate."

Mrs. Edwin Barley appeared at the door, and paused here, as if listening to the conclusion of the last sentence. Mr. Barley turned and saw her, and she came forward. She had twisted up her damp hair, and thrown on a shawl of white China crape. Her eyes were brilliant, her cheeks carmine--beautiful she looked altogether.

The officer questioned her as to the cause of the quarrel which she had been present at, but she would give him no satisfactory answer. She "could not remember;" "Philip King was in the wrong, she knew that;" "the officer must excuse her talking, for her head ached, and her brain felt confused." Such was the substance--all, in fact, that he could get from her. He bowed and withdrew, and Mr. Barley followed him downstairs, Selina bolting the door after them.

"Now, Anne, I must have a little conversation with you," she said, drawing me to her as she sat on the low ottoman. And I could see that she shivered still. She proceeded to question me of what had occurred after I left her at the summerhouse. I told her; and had got to where Philip King was shot, when she interrupted.

"Good Heavens, child! you saw him shot?"

"I heard the noise, and saw him fall. It seemed to come from the spot where he had been gazing."

"Did you see who did it?" she asked, scarcely above her breath.

"No."

"Then you saw no one about except Philip King?"

"I saw Mr. Edwin Barley. He was near the spot from whence the shot seemed to come, looking through the trees and standing still, as if he wondered what could be amiss. For, oh, Selina! Philip King's scream was dreadful, and must have been heard a long way."

My aunt caught hold of my arm in a sort of fright. "Anne! what do you say? You saw Edwin Barley at that spot! Not Mr. Heneage?"

"I did not see Mr. Heneage at all then. I saw only Mr. Edwin Barley. He came up to Philip King, asking what was the matter."

"Had he his gun with him--Edwin Barley?"

"Yes, he was carrying it."

She dropped my arm, and sat quite still, shrinking as if some blow had struck her. Two or three minutes passed before she spoke again.

"Go on, Anne. What next? Tell me all that passed, for I suppose you heard." And I related what I knew, word for word.

"You have not told me all, Anne."

"Yes, I have."

"Did not Philip King say that Mr. Heneage had raised his gun, aimed at him, and fired? that he saw him do it?"

"He did not, aunt. He only said what I have told you."

"Lie the first!" she exclaimed, lifting her hand and letting it fall passionately. "Then you never saw Mr. Heneage?"

"I saw him later." And I went on to tell her of meeting him through my taking the wrong turning. I told her all: how he looked as one in mortal fright; what he said; and of my asking him whether he had done it.

"Well?" she feverishly interrupted. "Well?"

"He quite denied it," I answered, repeating to her exactly the words Mr. Heneage had said.

"You say he looked scared--confused?"

"Yes, very much so."

"And Mr. Edwin Barley--did he?"

"Not at all. He looked just as he always looks. He seemed to be surprised, and very sorry; his voice, when he spoke to Philip King, was kinder than I ever heard it."

Another pause. She seemed to be thinking.

"I can hardly understand where it was you saw George Heneage, Anne: you must show me to-morrow. Was it on the same side from which the shot came?"

"Yes; I think near to the place. Or how could he have heard Mr. Barley speak to me?"

"How long had you been in the wood when the shot was fired?"

"About ten minutes or a quarter-of-an-hour."

"Little girls compute time differently from grown-up people, Anne. A few minutes might seem like a quarter-of-an-hour to you."

"Mamma taught me how differently time appears to pass, according to what we may be doing, Aunt Selina. That when we are pleasantly occupied, it seems to fly; and when we are impatient for it to go on, or in any suspense or fear, it does not seem to move. I think I have learnt to be pretty exact, and I do believe that I was in the wood nearly a quarter-of-an-hour. I was running about for some time, looking for Mr. Heneage, as you told me, before I found I had lost myself. And then I was some minutes getting over the fright. I had said my prayers, and--"

"You had--WHAT?"

"I was much alarmed; I thought I might have to stay in the wood until morning, and I could only pray to God to protect me: I knew that harm would not come to me then. It must have been a quarter-of-an-hour in all: so you see Mr. Heneage did not do it in the heat of passion, in running after him: he must have done it deliberately."

"I don't care," she repeated to herself, in a sort of defiant voice; "I know George Heneage did not wilfully shoot Philip King. If he did do it, it was an accident; but I don't believe he did."

"If he did not, why did he hide in the wood, and look as if he had done something wrong, Selina? Why did he not go boldly up, and see what was amiss with Philip King, as Mr. Edwin Barley did?"

"There is no accounting for what people do in these moments of confusion and terror: some act in one way, some in another," she said, slowly. "Anne, I don't like to speak out openly to you--what I fear and what I don't fear, It was imperative upon George Heneage to hasten home--and he may not have believed that Philip King was really dead."

"But, Selina--"

"Go! go! lie down there," she said, drawing me to the distant sofa, and pushing me on it, with the pillow over my head. "You are asleep, mind! He might think I had been tutoring you."

So sudden and unexpected was the movement, I could only obey, and lie still. Selina unbolted the door, and was back in her seat before Mr. Edwin Barley entered the room.

"Are you coming down to dinner, Selina?"

"Dinner! It is well for you that you can eat any," was her answer. "You must dine without me to-day--those who dine at all. Now, don't disturb that sleeping child, Mr. Barley! I was just going to send her to bed."

"It might do you more good to eat dinner than to roam about in a night-fog," was Mr. Edwin Barley's rejoinder. "It is rather curious you should choose such a night as this to be out in, half-naked."

"Not curious," she said, coldly: "very natural."

"Very! Especially that you should be tearing up and down the wood paths, like a mad woman. Others saw you as well as myself, and are speaking of it."

"Let them speak."

"But for what purpose were you there?"

"I was looking for George Heneage. There! you may make the most of it."

"Did you find him?"

"No. I wish I had: I wish I had. I should have learnt from him the truth of this night's business; for the truth, as I believe, has not come to light yet."

"What do you suppose to be the truth?" he returned, in a tone of surprise; whether natural, or assumed, who could say?

"No matter--no matter now: it is something that I scarcely dare to glance at. Better, even, that Heneage had done it, than--than--what I am thinking of. My head is confused to-night, she broke off; "my mind unhinged--hardly sane. You had better leave me, Mr. Barley."

"You had better come and eat a bit of dinner" he said roughly, but not unkindly. "None of us can touch much, I dare say, but we are going to sit down. William is staying, and so is Martin. Won't you come and try to take a bit? Or shall I send you something up?"

"It would be of no use."

Mr. Edwin Barley looked at her: she was shivering outwardly and inwardly. I could just see out under the corner of the cushion.

"You have caught a violent cold, Selina. How could you think of going out?"

"I will tell you," she added, in a more conciliating spirit. "I went out because you went. To prevent any encounter between you and George Heneage,--I mean any violence. After that, I stayed looking for him."

"You need not have feared violence from me. I should have handed him over to the police, nothing more."

There was a mocking sound in his voice as he spoke. Selina sat down and put her feet on the fender.

"I hate to dine without some one at the head of the table," Mr. Edwin Barley said, turning to the door. "If you will not come, I shall ask Charlotte Delves to sit down."

"It is nothing to me who sits down when I am not there."

He departed with the ungracious reply ringing in his ears: and ungracious I felt it to be. She bolted the door again, and pulled the blue velvet cushion off my head.

"Are you smothered, child? Get up. Now, mark me: you must not say a word to Mr. Edwin Barley of what happened at the summer-house. Do not mention it at all--to him, or to any one else."

"But suppose I am asked, Selina?"

"How can you be asked? Philip King is gone, poor fellow; George Heneage is not here, and who else is there to ask you? You surely have not spoken of it already?" she continued, in a tone of alarm.

I had not spoken of it to any one, and told her so. Jemima had questioned me as to the cause of my terror, when I ran in from the wood, and I said I had heard a shot and a scream; I had not courage to say more.

"That's well," said Selina.

She sent me to rest, ordering Jemima to stay by me until I was asleep. "The child may feel nervous," she remarked to her, in an undertone, but the words reached me. And I suppose Jemima felt nervous, for one of the other maids came also.

The night passed; morning came; Sunday; and with it illness for Mrs. Edwin Barley. I gathered from Jemima's conversation, while she was dressing me, that Selina had slept alone: Mr. Edwin Barley, with his brother and some more gentlemen, had been out a great part of the night looking for George Heneage. It was so near morning when they returned, that he would not go to his wife's room for fear of disturbing her.

I ran in when I went downstairs. She lay in bed, and her voice, as she spoke to me, did not sound like her own. "Are you ill, Selina? Why do you speak so hoarsely?"

"I feel very ill, Anne. My throat is bad--or my chest, I can scarcely tell which: perhaps it is both. Go downstairs, and send Miss Delves to me."

I have said that I was an imaginative, thoughtful, excitable child, and as I hastened to obey her, one sole recollection (I could have said fear) kept running through my brain. It was the oracular observation made by Duff, relating to his mistress and the fog: "It's enough to give her her death!" Suppose she had caught her death? My fingers, fastening my narrow waistband, trembled at the thought.

The first thing I saw when I went down was a large high screen of many folds, raised across the hall, shutting out part of it from view. It seemed to strike me back with fear. Sarah was coming out of the dining-room with a duster in her hand: it was early yet. I caught hold of her gown.

"Sarah, what is behind there?"

"The same that was last night, miss," she answered. "Nothing is to be moved until the coroner has come."

"Have they taken Mr. Heneage?"

"Not that I have heard of, miss. One of the police was in just now, and he told Miss Delves there was no news."

"I want to find Miss Delves. Where is she?"

"In master's study. You can go in. Don't you know which it is? It's that room built out at the back, half-way up the first flight of stairs. You can see the door from here."

In the study sat Mr. Barley and Mr. Edwin Barley at breakfast, Charlotte Delves serving them. I gave her my aunt's message, but was nearly scared out of my senses at being laid hold of by Mr. Edwin Barley.

"Go up at once, Charlotte, and see what it is," he said. "How do you say, little one--that her throat is bad?"

"Yes, sir; she cannot speak well."

"No wonder; she has only herself to thank," he muttered, as Charlotte Delves left the room. "The wonder would be if she were not ill."

"Why?" asked Mr. Barley, curiously, lifting his head.

"Oh, she got frightened last night when poor Philip was brought in, and ran out in the fog after me with nothing on."

He released my arm, and Mr. Barley put a chair for me beside him, and gave me some breakfast. I had taken quite a liking to him, he was so simple and kind. He told me he had no little girls or boys of his own, and his wife was always ill, unable to go out.

"Mrs. Edwin Barley appears exceedingly poorly," said Charlotte Delves, when she returned. "Lowe said he should be here this morning; he shall see her when he comes. She must have taken cold."

Scarcely had she spoken when the surgeon arrived. Mr. Edwin Barley went upstairs with him. Mr. Lowe came down alone afterwards, and I caught a moment to speak to him when no one was listening.

"Will my Aunt Selina get well, sir?"

"I do not know, my dear," he answered, turning upon me his grave face. "I fear she is going to be very ill."

Sunday came to an end; oh, such a dull day it had seemed!--and Monday morning dawned. It was Selina's birthday: she was twenty-one.

Nothing could be heard of George Heneage. The police scoured the country; handbills were printed, offering a reward for his apprehension; no effort was left untried, but he was not found. Opinions were fiercely bandied about: some said he must have escaped in the fog, and got off by the railway from Nettleby, or by the other line beyond Hallam; others thought he was lying concealed near the spot still. Mr. Edwin Barley was in great anger at his escape, and vowed he would pursue him to the death.

Not on this day, but the following, Tuesday, Mr. Heneage's father came to the house--a fine old gentleman, with white hair. Mr. Lowe corrected me for calling him old, and said he could not be much more than fifty. I had not then the experience to know that whilst young people call fifty old, those past that age are apt to style it young. I saw him twice as he went along the passages, but was not close to him. He was a courteous, gentlemanly man, but seemed bowed down with grief. It was said he could not understand the calamity at all, and decidedly refused to believe in his son's guilt. If the shot had in truth proceeded from him, the gun must have gone off by accident.

"Then why should he run away?" argued Mr. Edwin Barley.

He stayed in the house altogether but about two hours, and had an interview with Mrs. Edwin Barley in her bedroom before his departure. Refreshments were laid for him, but he declined to touch anything: I heard the servants commenting on it.

In the afternoon the coroner's inquest sat. It was held in the dining-room. The chief witness was Mr. Edwin Barley. I was not called upon, and Selina said it was a proof that he had not mentioned I was present at the time. You may be sure I took care not to mention it; neither did she. Nothing transpired touching the encounter at the summer-house; therefore the affair appeared to the public involved in mystery. Mr. Edwin Barley protested that it was a mystery to him. He could not conceive what motive Heneage could have had in taking Philip King's life. Mr. Edwin Barley testified that Philip King, in dying, had asserted he saw George Heneage take aim and fire at him, and there was no one to contradict the assertion. I knew Philip King had not said so much; but no one else knew it, except Mrs. Edwin Barley, and she only from me. They did not require her to appear at the inquest; it was assumed that she knew nothing whatever about the transaction.

Charlotte Delves was called, at the request of the jury, because Philip King had sat with her in her parlour for half-an-hour the morning of his death; but she proved that he had not touched upon anything unpleasant, or spoken then of George Heneage. The feeling between them had not been good, she testified, and there used to be bickerings and disputes. "What about?" asked the jury; but Miss Delves only answered that she "could not say." The fact was, Mr. Edwin Barley in his stern way had ordered her not to bring in his wife's name.

Whilst the inquest was sitting I stayed in Selina's room. She seemed very restless, turning about in bed continually, and telling me to listen how it was "going on." But I could hear nothing, though I went often on the stairs to try.

"What was that stir just now, Anne?" she asked, when it was late.

"They called from the dining-room to have the chandelier lighted. John went in and did it."

"Is it dark, Anne?"

"Not dark. It is getting dark."

Dark it appeared to be in the chamber, for the crimson silk curtains were drawn before the large, deep bay-window, and also partially round the bed. You could distinguish the outline of objects, and that was all. I went close up to the bed and looked at her; she was buried in the pillows: that she was very ill I knew, for a physician from Nettleby had come that morning with Mr. Lowe.

"I think it must be over." she said, as a bustle was heard below. "Go and see, dear."

I went half-way down the stairs in the dark. No one had thought to light the hall-lamp. Sure enough, they were pouring out of the room, a crowd of dark figures, talking as they came, and slowly making for the hall-door. Suddenly I distinguished Mr. Edwin Barley coming towards the stairs.

To his study, as I thought, and back went I, not caring to encounter him. Added to my childish dislike and fear of Mr. Edwin Barley, since Saturday night another impulse to avoid him had been added: a dread, which I could not divest myself of, that he might question me as to that meeting at the summer-house, and to the subsequent interview with George Heneage. Selina had ordered me to be silent; but if he found anything out and questioned me, what could I do? I know that the fear was upon me then and for a long time afterwards.

I crept swiftly back again up the stairs, and into my aunt's room. Surely he was not coming to it! Those were his footsteps, and they drew nearer: he could not have turned into his study! No, they came on. In the impulse of the moment, I pushed behind the heavy window-curtain. It was drawn straight across from wall to wall, leaving a space between it and the bow of the window nearly as large as a small room. There were three chairs there, one in the middle of the window and at the two sides. I sat down on one of them, and, pulling the white blind slightly aside, looked out at the dark figures who were then sauntering down the avenue.

"Well, it's over," said Mr. Edwin Barley to his wife, as he came in and shut the door. "And now all the work will be to find him."

"How has it ended?" she asked.

"Wilful murder. The coroner was about to clear the room, but the jury intimated that they required no deliberation, and returned their verdict at once."

"Wilful murder against whom?"

"Against George Heneage. Did you suppose it was against you or me?"

There was a pause. I felt in miserable indecision, knowing that I ought, in honour, to go out and show myself, but not daring to do it. Selina resumed, speaking as emphatically as her inflamed throat permitted.

"I cannot believe--I never will believe--that George Heneage was capable of committing murder. His whole nature would rise up against it: as his father said in this room a few hours ago. If the shot did come from his gun, it must have been fired inadvertently."

"The shot did come from his gun," returned Mr. Edwin Barley. "There's no 'if' in the question."

"I am aware you say so; but it was passing strange that you, also with your gun, should have been upon the spot. Now, stay!--don't put yourself in a passion. I cannot help saying it. I think all this suspense and uncertainty is killing me!"

Mr. Edwin Barley dragged a chair to the side of the bed, anger in the very sound. I felt ready to drop, lest he should see me through the slit in the curtain.

"We will have this out, Selina. It is not the first time you have given utterance to hints that you ought to be ashamed of. Do you suspect that I shot Philip King?"

His tone was so stern that, perhaps, she did not like to say "yes" outright, and tampered with the question.

"Not exactly that. But there's only your word to prove that it was George Heneage. And you know how incensed you have latterly been against him."

"Who caused me to be incensed? Why, you."

"There was no real cause. Were it the last words I had to speak, Edwin"--and she burst into tears--"were I dying I would assert it. I never cared for George Heneage in the way you fancy."

"I fancy! Had I fancied that, I should have flung George Heneage out of my house long ago," was his rejoinder, spoken calmly. "But now hear me, Selina. It has been your pleasure to declare so much to me. On my part, I declare to you that Heneage, and Heneage only, killed Philip King. Dispossess your mind of all dark folly. You must be insane, I think, to take it up against your husband."

"Did you see Heneage fire?" she asked, after a silence.

"No. I should have known pretty surely that it could only be Heneage, had there been no proof against him; but there were Philip's dying words. Still, I did not see Heneage at the place, and I have never said I did. I was pushing home through the wood, and halted a second, thinking I heard voices: it must have been Philip talking to the child: at that very moment a shot was fired close to me--close, mind you--not two yards off; but the trees are thick just there, and whoever fired it was hid from my view. I was turning to search, when Philip King's awful scream rang out, and I pushed my head beyond the trees and saw him in the act of falling to the ground. I hastened to him, and the other escaped. This is the entire truth, so far as I am cognizant of it."

It might have been the truth; and, again, it might not. It was just one of those things that depend upon the credibility of the utterer. What little corroboration there was, certainly was on Mr. Edwin Barley's side: only that he had asserted more than was true of the dying words of Philip King. If these were the simple facts, the truth, why have added falsehood to them?

"Heneage could have had no motive for taking the life of Philip King," argued Mrs. Edwin Barley. "That he would have caned him, or given him some other sound chastisement, I grant you--and richly he deserved it, for he was the cause of all the ill-feeling that had arisen in the house--but, to kill him! No, no!"

"And yet you would deem me capable of it!"

"I am not accusing you. But when you come to speak of motives, I cannot help seeing that George Heneage could have had none."

"You have just observed that the author of the mischief, the bad feeling which had sprung up in the house, was Philip King; but you are wrong. The author was you, Selina."

No answer. She put up one of her hot hands, and shaded her eyes. -

"I forgive you," he continued. "I am willing to bury the past in silence: never to recur to it--never henceforth to allude to it, though the boy was my relative and ward, and I liked him. But I would recommend you to bear this tragical ending in mind, as a warning for the future. I will not tolerate further folly in my wife; and your own sense ought to tell you that had I been ambitious of putting some one out of the world, it would have been Heneage, not Philip. Heneage has killed him, and upon his head be the consequences. I will never cease my endeavours to bring it home to him. I will spare no pains, or energy, or cost, until it is accomplished. So help me, Heaven!"

He rose with the last solemn word, and put the chair back in its place. On his way to the door he turned, speaking in a softer voice.

"Are you better this evening, Selina?"

"No. It seems to me that I grow worse with every hour."

"I'll send Lowe up to you. He is somewhere about."

"Oh, aunt, aunt!" I said, going forward with lifted hands and streaming eyes, as he left the chamber, "I was here all the time! I saw Mr. Edwin Barley coming in, and I hid behind the window-curtain. I never meant to be a listener: I was afraid to come out."

She looked at me without speaking, and her face, hot with fever, grew more flushed. She seemed to be considering; perhaps remembering what had passed.

- "I--I--don't think there was anything very particular said, that you need care; or, rather, that I need," she said at length. "Was there?"

"No, Selina. Only--"

"Only what, child? Why do you hesitate?"

"You think it might have been Mr. Edwin Barley. I wish I had not heard that."

"I said, or implied, it was as likely to have been he as the other. Anne," she suddenly added, "you possess thought and sense beyond your years: what do you think?"

"I think it was Mr. Heneage. I think so because he has run away, and because he looked so strangely when he was hiding. And I do not think it was Mr. Edwin Barley. When he told you how it occurred just now, and that it was not he, his voice sounded as though he were speaking the truth."

"Oh, dear!" she moaned, "I hope it was so! What a mercy if that Philip King had never come near the house!"

"But, Selina, you are sorry that he is dead?"

"Sorry that he is dead? Of course I am sorry. What a curious child you are! He was no favourite of mine; but," she cried, passionately clasping her hands, "I would give all I am worth to call him back to life."

But I could not be reconciled to what I had done, and sobbed on heavily, until lights and Mr. Lowe came in together.

"If ever I heard the like of that! one won't be able to open one's lips next before you, Miss Hereford. Did I say anything about her dying, pray? Or about your dying? Or my dying? Time enough to snap me up when I do."

Thus spoke Jemima, with a volubility that nearly took her breath away. She had come to my room in the morning with the news that Mrs. Edwin Barley was worse. I burst into tears, and asked if she were going to die: which brought forth the above rebuke.

"My thoughts were running upon whether we servants should have mourning given us for young Mr. King," resumed Jemima, as if she were bent upon removing unpleasant impressions from my mind. "Now just you make haste and dress yourself, Miss Hereford--Mrs. Edwin Barley has been asking for you."

I made haste; Jemima helped; and she ushered me to the door of the sick-room, halting to whisper a parting word.

"Don't you begin crying again, miss. Your aunt is no more going to die than I am."

The first words spoken by Mrs. Edwin Barley were a contradiction to this, curious coincident though it may seem. She was lying very high on the frilled white pillows, no cap on, her cheeks hectic, and her lovely golden hair falling around her head. A large bright fire burned in the grate, and a small tray, with a white cloth and cup on it, stood on the table near.

"Child," she began, holding out her hand to me, "I fear I am about to be taken from you."

I did not answer; I did not cry; all tears seemed scared away then. It was a confirmation of my secret, inward fears, and my face turned white.

"What was that you said to me about the Keppe-Carews never dying without a warning? And I laughed at you! Do you remember? Anne, I think the warning came to me last night."

I glanced timidly round the room. It was a luxurious bed-chamber, costly furniture and pretty toilette trifles everywhere. The crimson silk curtains were drawn closely before the bay-window, and I could see Selina clearly in the semi-light.

"Your mamma told you she had a dream, Anne. Well, I have had a dream. And yet I feel sure it was not a dream, but reality; reality. She appeared to me last night."

"Who? Mamma?"

"Your mamma. The Keppe-Carew superstition is, that when one is going to die, the last relative, whether near or distant, who has been taken from them by death, comes again to give them notice that their own departure is near. Ursula was the last who went, and she came to me in the night."

"It can't be true," I sobbed, shivering from head to foot.

"She stood there, in the faint rays of the shaded lamp," pursued Selina, not so much as listening to me. "I have not really slept all night; I have been in that semi-conscious, dozing state when the mind is awake both to dreams and to reality, knowing not which is which. Just before the clock struck two, I awoke partially from one of these semi-dreams, and I saw your mamma at the foot of the bed--a shadowy sort of figure and face, but I knew it for Ursula's. She just looked at me, and said 'Selina!' Then I woke up thoroughly--the name, the sound of her well-remembered voice ringing in my ears."

"And seeing her?" I eagerly asked.

"No. Seeing nothing but the opening between the curtains at the foot of the bed, and the door beyond it; nothing more than is to be seen now."

"Then, Selina, it was a dream after all?"

"In one sense, yes. The world would call it so. To me it was something more. A minute afterwards the clock struck two, and I was as wide awake as I am now."

The reaction came, and I burst into tears. "Selina! it was a dream; it could only have been a dream!"

"I should no doubt think so, Anne, but for what you told me of your mamma's warning. But for hearing that, I might never have remembered that such a thing is said to follow the Keppe-Carews."

What with remorse for having told her, though charged by my mother to do it, and what with my own fears, I could not speak for hysterical sobbing.

"You stupid little sensitive thing!" exclaimed Selina, with a touch of her old lightness; "perhaps in a week's time I shall be well, and running about out of doors with you. Go down to Charlotte Delves's parlour, and get your breakfast, and then come to me again. I want you to go on an errand for me; but don't say so. Mind that, Anne."

"No, no; I won't say it, Selina."

"Tell them to give you some honey."

They brought the honey and set out other good things for me in Miss Delves's parlour, but I could not eat. Charlotte Delves was very kind. Both the doctors came up the avenue. I watched them into the house; I heard them come downstairs again. The physician from Nettleby went straight out: Mr. Lowe came to the parlour.

"My dear," he said to me, "you are to go up to Mrs. Edwin Barley."

"Is she much worse, sir?" I lingered to ask.

"I can hardly say how she is," was his answer. "We must hope for the best."

He stayed in the room himself, and shut the door while he talked to Miss Delves. The hall-clock struck ten as I passed under it, making me start. The hall was clear to-day, and the window and door stood a little open. Jemima told me that Philip King was in a sitting-room at the back, one that was rarely used. I ran quickly up to Selina's chamber. Mr. Edwin Barley was in it, to my dismay. He turned to leave it when I went in, and put his hand kindly enough upon my hair.

"You look pale, little one; you should run out of doors for a while."

His wife watched him from the room with her strangely altered eyes, and then beckoned to me.

"Shut the door, and bolt it, Anne." And very glad I felt to do it. It was impossible to overcome my fear of Mr. Edwin Barley.

"Do you think you could find your way to Hallam?"

"I dare say 1 could, aunt."

"Selina, call me Selina," she impatiently interposed. "Call it me to the last."

To the last!

"You remember the way you came from Nettleby, Anne? In going out at the gates by the lodge, Nettleby lies on your left hand, Hallam on your right. You understand?"

"Oh, quite."

"You have only to turn to the right, and keep straight along the high road; in a short time you come to Hallam village. The way is not at all lonely; cottages and houses are scattered all along it."

"I am sure I could go quite easily, Selina."

"Then put your things on, and take this note," she said, giving me a little piece of paper twisted up, that she took from under the pillow. "In going down Hallam Street, you will see on the left hand a house standing by itself, with 'Mr. Gregg, Attorney-at-Law,'on a plate on the door. Go in, ask to see Mr. Gregg alone, and give him that note. But mind, Anne, you are not to speak of this to any one. Should Mr. Edwin Barley or any one else meet you, and inquire where you are going, say only that you are walking out. Do you fully understand?"

"Yes."

"Hide the note, so that no one sees it, and give it into Mr. Gregg's hands. Tell him I hope he will comprehend it, but that I was too ill to write more elaborately."

No one noticed me as I left the house, and I pursued the road to Hallam, my head and thoughts full. Suppose Mr. Edwin Barley should meet and question me! I knew that I should make a poor hand at deception: besides being naturally open, mamma had brought me up to be so very candid and truthful. I had crushed the note inside my glove, having no better place of concealment--suppose he should seize my hand and find it! And if the gentleman I was going to see should not be at home, what was I to do then? Bring the note back to Selina, or leave it? I ought to have asked her.

"Well, my little maid, and where are you off to?"

The salutation proceeded from Mr. Martin, who had come right upon me at a turning of the road. My face grew hot as I answered him.

"I am out for a walk, sir."

"But this is rather far to come alone. You are close upon Hallam."

"My Aunt Selina knows it, sir," I said, trembling lest he should stop me, or order me t