hunger and madness; keeping guard over
the secret which was buried in their garden.

"Oh, that any one would stay with me!"
said the lonely old woman. "I shall die
of fear and grief!" And she besought the
charwoman who had been helping her not
to leave the house. But the charwoman
was obliged to go.

So Seraphina was left alone. The closed
shutters and the fastened doors shut her
out from the summer world, even such as
it was in the street. That clump of trees
against the distant horizon was as far from
her vision as if it had been ten thousand
miles away. The sun streamed in through
the cracks of the dilapidated shutters, and
ventured a little way along the floor to
smile at that miserable living creature, so
old and so ugly and so utterly forlorn, who
sat watching beside two coffins. And it
was worse when evening came, and the
children of the neighbourhood, who had
been at school all day, came out to romp
and sing under the window; but worse still
when supper time had called them home, and
the street was deserted, and the night was
growing darker and more silent every
moment.

"I shall go quite mad!" said Seraphina,
striking her poor breast in despair.

"Oh, little girl! little girl next door!"
moaned she. "Would that you would
come knocking to this house again!"

Just then little Witch was getting her
house put in order for the night, and her
sisters put to bed. Whether some echo of
that cry reached her through the wall, I
will not say; but certain it is that no
sooner was she alone in her own room than
she began to pray for the one solitary old
woman now alone in the neighbouring
house, and to think of her even more pitifully
than she had thought when there had
been two. It appeared that there was a
fascination about those poor old ugly
neighbours, living and dead; for Witch could
not settle to take her rest.

"Little girl! little girl!" moaned Seraphina
at the other side of the wall.

"Oh, poor old woman!" sighed Witch,
who, nevertheless, of course, could not hear
her. And at last little Witch, being very
tired, fell asleep, and desolate Seraphina
sat alone through the long night, almost
crazed with fear and despair.

When Witch went out to the garden
next morning, she saw Seraphina's poor
gnome-like face looking wistfully down on
her from the lobby window.

"It is awful to think of anything human
being so ugly," thought Witch; but still
she went on pitying the poor neighbour.

Looking up again she imagined that the
old woman stretched her arms towards her;
and this remained upon her mind.

"That is not the one who turned me
back," thought Witch; and then she went
indoors, trembling. It was as if she had
seen a goblin looking out of a haunted
house.

At last the dreary night came round
again, and Seraphina tottered about her
miserable home, in and out of the blank
empty rooms, and back again to the death-
chamber. The companionship of that dead
brother and sister was too dreadful. Having
feared them in life she feared them more in
death, and the rooms in which they were
not seemed more terrible than the rooms in
which they were. Presently, sitting in all
her woe, Seraphina heard a gentle little
knock come on the street door of her
house.

Seraphina raised her head and listened.

Could it be a robber? Or could it be the
little girl come in answer to her call?

The knock was repeated, and Seraphina
took her rushlight in hand, and stumbled
down the dark staircase to the hall.

"Who is it?" she called through the
keyhole.

"I live next door, and my name is little
Witch," was the answer. Whereupon
Seraphina at once set down her rushlight,
and withdrew the chain from the door.

"Come in, come in!" she said, holding
her shaking hands towards the visitor,
while tears and a human light came into
her poor dreary eyes.

"I thought you might be lonely," said
Witch, apologetically, " and that you might
let me stay with you till morning."

"My dear, my dear!" cried the old woman,
"how will you bear this dreadful
house?" And then getting quite sick with
joy at hearing so pleasant a young voice in
her ears, she fainted in the hall at Witch's
feet.

Witch was terrified, thinking she was
dead. "I have killed her," she said to
herself. But, after great efforts, she
succeeded in restoring poor Seraphina's senses,
and assisted her to an old settee in the
dingy parlour, where she covered her with
her own little cloak. Then she set about
making a fire in the rusty parlour grate,
where a fire had not been kindled for half a
century. She stole back to her own house,
and out of her scanty stores brought some
tea, besides other matters not to be found