and Lois sprang out towards her, flying across
the moonlit room in their white nightgowns. At
the same instant summoned by the same cry,
Grace Hickson came to her child.

' Hush! hush!" said Faith, authoritatively.

"What is it, my wench?" asked Grace.
While Lois, feeling as if she had done all the
mischief, kept silence.

"Take her away, take her away!" screamed
Prudence. "Look over her shoulder—her left
shoulder—the Evil One is there now, I see him
stretching over for the half-bitten apple."

"What is this she says?" said Grace,
austerely.

"She is dreaming," said Faith; "Prudence,
hold thy tongue." And she pinched the child
severely, while Lois more tenderly tried to
soothe the alarms she felt that she had conjured up.

"Be quiet, Prudence," said she, " and go to
sleep. I will stay by thee till thou hast gone
off into slumber."

"No, no! go away," sobbed Prudence, who
was really terrified at first, but was now assuming
more alarm than she felt from the pleasure
she received at perceiving herself the centre of
attention. "Faith shall stay by me, not you,
wicked English witch."

So Faith sat by her sister, and Grace,
displeased and perplexed, withdrew to her own
bed, purposing to inquire more into the matter
in the morning. Lois only hoped it might all
be forgotten by morning, and resolved never to
talk again of such things. But an event
happened in the remaining hours of the night to
change the current of affairs. While Grace had
been absent from her room her husband had had
another paralytic stroke: whether he, too, had
been alarmed by that eldritch scream no one
could ever know. By the faint light of the rush-
candle burning at the bedside his wife perceived
that a great change had taken place in his aspect
on her return: the irregular breathing came
almost like snorts—the end was drawing near.
The family were roused, and all help given that
either the doctor or experience could suggest
But before the late November morning light all
was ended for Ralph Hickson.

The whole of the ensuing day they sat or
moved in darkened rooms, and spoke few words
and those below their breath. Manasseh kept
at home, regretting his father, no doubt, but
showing but little emotion. Faith was the child
that bewailed her loss most grievously; she had
a warm heart, hidden away somewhere under
her moody exterior, and her father had shown
her far more passive kindness than ever her
mother had done, for Grace made distinct
favourites of Manasseh, her only son, and
Prudence, her youngest child. Lois was about as
unhappy as any of them, for she had felt
strongly drawn towards her uncle as her kindest
friend, and the sense of his loss renewed the old
sorrow she had experienced at her own parents'
death. But she had no time and no place to
cry in. On her devolved many of the cares
which it would have seemed indecorous in the
nearer relatives to interest themselves in enough
to take an active part : the change required in
their dress, the household preparations for the
sad feast of the funeral—Lois had to arrange all
under her aunt's stern direction.

But a day or two afterwards—the last day
before the funeral—she went into the yard to
fetch in some fagots for the oven; it was a
solemn, beautiful, starlit evening, and some
sudden sense of desolation in the midst of the
vast universe thus revealed touched Lois's
heart, and she sat down behind the woodstack,
and cried very plentiful tears.

She was startled by Manasseh, who suddenly
turned the corner of the stack, and stood before
her.

"Lois crying!"

"Only a little," she said, rising up, and
gathering her bundle of fagots, for she dreaded
being questioned by her grim, impassive cousin.
To her surprise, he laid his hand on her arm,
and said:

"Stop one minute. Why art thou crying,
cousin?"

"I don't know," she said, just like a child
questioned in like manner; and she was again on
the point of weeping.

"My father was very kind to thee, Lois; I
do not wonder that thou grievest after him.
But the Lord who takest away can restore
tenfold. I will be as kind as my father—yea,
kinder. This is not a time to talk of marriage
and giving in marriage. But after we have
buried our dead I wish to speak to thee."

Lois did not cry now, but she shrank with
affright. What did her cousin mean? She
would far rather that he had been angry with
her for unreasonable grieving, for folly.

She avoided him carefully—as carefully as
she could, without seeming to dread him—for
the next few days. Sometimes she thought it
must have been a bad dream; for if there had
been no English lover in the case, no other man
in the whole world, she could never have thought
of Manasseh as her husband; indeed, till now,
there had been nothing in his words or actions
to suggest such an idea. Now it had been
suggested there was no telling how much she
loathed him. He might be good, and pious—
he doubtless was—but his dark, fixed eyes,
moving so slowly and heavily, his lank black
hair, his grey coarse skin, all made her dislike
him now—all his personal ugliness and
ungainliness struck on her senses with a jar since
those few words spoken behind the haystack.

She knew that sooner or later the time must
come for further discussion of this subject; but,
like a coward, she tried to put it off, by clinging
to her aunt's apron-string, for she was sure
that Grace Hickson had far different views for
her only son. As, indeed, she had, for she was
an ambitious, as well as a religious, woman;
and by an early purchase of land in Salem
village the Hicksons had become wealthy
people, without any great exertions of their
own; partly, also, by the silent process of
accumulation, for they had never cared to change
their manner of living from the time when it