the other, you know, if one could help it."

"Heaven forbid, madam, that I should offer you any insult," said I, touched by the evident misfortune of this poor creature. "I merely ran hither because I heard the cry, as I thought, of some one in distress."

"Ah, that was the dog, sir," replied the old woman cheerfully; "the butler was correcting his dog, and it howled a little. Of course it could not have been me—certainly not; Sir Massingberd is so excessively anxious that I should have everything that is good for me; he said that with his own lips. And what a handsome mouth he has, except when he looks at you."

"Why at me?" cried I. "He has no cause to dislike me, has he!"

"No cause!" cried the old woman, coming closer to the bars, and lowering her voice to a confidential whisper. "Oh no—not if you were dead. I never wished you worse than myself; no, not when my poor baby died, and I could not weep. I feel that now; if I could only weep, as in the good old times with my husband! There was plenty of good weeping then—plenty."

"But why should you wish me dead, madam, who have never done you any harm?"

"No harm? What not to have taken the title from my boy? No harm, when but for you, he would have been the heir to house and land! Why, look you, if it had not been for something, I would have driven Gilmore's knife into you that day when you were sleeping under the limes. That was the very place where I used to meet my love—let me see, how many years ago?"

The eager eyes for one instant ceased to glitter; some fragment of a memory of the past claimed the restless brain; then once more she rambled on. "One, two, three, four—he never struck me more than four times; that's true, I swear."

"And what was the something that prevented you from killing me when I was asleep by the heron's island?" inquired I.

"What was it?" replied the old woman sadly. "Did you not cry, 'Mother, mother,' in your sleep, to make me think of my boy? I wept at that; just one tear. He might have been such another as yourself—with the same—Why, what's the matter with your forehead? What have you done with your horseshoe? Every Heath wears one of them; then why not you, young Marmaduke?"

"My name is not Heath," said I; "you are taking me for somebody else."

"Dear me—dear me, 

 Prev. P 6/92 next