HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3196, 24 May 1909, Page 2

HER SILENCE JUSTIFIED.

CHAPTER XIII —Continued. "I shall make a magic circle around you, and turn you into a megatherium if you are to disobey my commands any longer!" exclaimed Laurence, seizing upon the advantage her superstitious terrors had given him. "Lead on, and don't venture to look behind you til! your foot is on the threshold of your own abode."

His startled auditor, but lately so bold and defiant, wrung her hands in distress.

"I'll not be made to harm granny. She's a cross old thing, but I'll not bring trouble on her."

"Lead on!" cried Laurence, in sepulchral tones. "Lead on! or dread my vengeance!"

And as he accompanied the threat with several passes of his long, thin fingers, and muttered a profusion of gibberish the while, she yielded so far as to point towards the south. "It's over there she lives—just the father side of the ridge—but I won't be the one to take you there. I won't —not if you kill me for it." She dashed away, well aware that she could defy them to follow her through the darkness and the tangled underwood; and once more the wet and weary men struggled onward, climbling with difficulty the steep ridge, on the other side of which—if their informant might be trusted—

lay the cottage they sought. But nothing was visible when they reached the summit save trees of varioUß growths—except where, in the distance, they caught a glimpse ot the Solent.

"We shall have to camp out, after all!" said Laurence despondently. "Wet and hunrgy? No, no; there must be houses somewhere. Now that we are not permitting ourselves to be bequiled by a will-o'-the-wisp, depend on it we shall find a resting place before long,"

"Hark! I can hear voices. Some one called!"

It was the half-querulous, halfangry accents of a woman that floated upward from the hollow lying between them and the shore.

"Lois!" it called; "Lois, come home!"

And an echo mockingly repeated, "Come home! Come home!" "I'm here, granny!" presently responded the girl, who had, by a circuitous route, found her way to the speaker. "I'm here, so let's get in the house as fast as we can, bolt the doors, put out the light, [and open to nobody." "You do give me such a turn when you pounce on a body that way!" cried the elder woman, fretfully. "Where's the tea you went to Lyndhurst to buy?" "In my pocket safe enough. I have done my errand, and I've had my fill of fun," she answered, laughing in spite of her breathlessness. "Oh, but I'm ready for bed. It's hard work rushing here and hiding there, and darting out were yju're least expected. Come along, granny; there's evildoers abroad in the forest to-night!" she went on, with more gravity, "let's you an' me shut ourselves in and keep quiet till they are gone." "Drat the girl! what do ye] mean?" asked Betty Wakely. resisting the attempt made to drag her from the spot. "It means," said Mr Stuart, who, guiding himself by the sounds, had approacrhed unseen, "it means that your granddaughter has been amusing Tierself at the expense of a couple of .travellers who had lost their way is the forest. My friend and 1 are drenched from head to foot and hope you will at least be hospitable enough to give us something to eat. and shelter for the night." "Don't listen to him, granny!" prayed the girl. "T'other one's a cunning man—he as good as owned it—an may ill wish us." But; Betty Wakely, clenched her horny palm over the silver Wilfred Stiiarfc has .slipped into it, pushed the speaker nwny. Although she shared the rural superstitions, her love of money was stronger than her .tears. "Get out with your nonsense. There's no pixes here like there was in my own country, and there can't be no creature anywhere that's worse to deal with than you be. Get indoors with ye and make up a good fire. You should have been home hours agone; and here have I been left to cut furze, chop sticks, feed the pig and the chickens, an' all be myself, while you were rampling about the wood amusing yourself and tattering your bits of clothes. Oh, I've no patience with yet!" The girl avoided the blow aimed a her, and darted away, laughing de risively as she went. Pursuing hei was out of the question, so, altering her angry tone to a more deferentia one, Betty Wakely smoothed he: apron and curtsied to Mr Stuarrt whom his friend had just joined. "Mine's a poor place for the like of you, sir; but there isnt' an inn al the village fit for you to sit dowi in, Ist alone that the landlord's jusl left a widower, and no one to cool yea bit of victuals. If you'll com this way you shall have my own bed and welcome. Ibe used to waitinj on gentry, though it's years ani years since I give up my little hous and come hero to look after a cross grained eld man, who, the vorse h got, the crosscr he was. Rest hi soul ! and forgive me for grurnblinj

V BY HENRIETTA B. EUTHVEN. ) %» Author of "His Second Love," " Cory don's Infatuation," * " Daring Doia," " An Unlucky Legacy," / Etc., Etc.

at him now he isn't here to backword me!"

Screaming for Lois as she went, Mrs Wakely hurried into the quaint, weather-beaten habitation, on whose thatched roof grew masses of lichen, house-leek, and various mosses. Above the smoldering peats on the hearth the girl had already piled brushwood, furze, and logs, till every corner of the" queer little redtiled kitchen was all aglow with the ruddy blaze. The kettle was singing on the hook, and before it boiled Mrs Wakely had not only prepared an appetizing dish of eggs and ham, but drawn a table up to the hearth well spread with home-made bread and delicious butter, \ and such dainiies as honey and the simple preserves she made from the fruit of her garden. Her hungry visitors enjoyed their meal, keeping her fully employed in toasting bread or broiling fresh relays of ham, till thny pronounced themselves satisfied, and, putting their chairs nearer to the still bright fire, stretched forth their' saturated feet to its warmth.

And now Betty, released from her duties as cook and waitress, came to tha hearth also, and stood on one side of it, looking down complacently on her guests. Hitherto she had been too busy to take much notice of them; for Lois, who had not conquered her dread of the wizard who had practised his maigc on her, would not come to h=r assistance, but kept out of sight, sitting on the stairs in a shadowy corner, ready to bound up to her little chamber in the attic and drop from the window, as she had often done before, as soon as she fancied herself in danger. From her post by the hearth Betty caught sight of the crouching figure on the stairs, and pounced upon it directly. "That's your way of dealing with me, is it, you limb? Look on while I work! Clear that table, and tidy up, or I'll make you repent it!" "It's hard upon me in my old age,''she sighed, watching with a frown the reckless movements of Lois, who clattersd plates and cups together with a haste that boded ill for their safety. "It's hard upon me to be left in my old age with such a scatter-brain as that girl 'pending on me! It's pounds that lam out of pocket every year with her heedless ways, let alon« the stray dogs and starved birds she's always bringing here to eat a poor body out of house arid home!" "Is not there any one living with you but your granddaughter?" asked Laurence Haydon. She started when he spoke, and the fire leaping up just then, and shining upon his features, he saw that he was recognized. ["to be continued.!