to peep forth; but when she turned her eyes earthward, she sought in vain for the gleam of a lamp or the glow of a cottier's fire. As far as she could ascertain, they were crossing a moorland plateau, for more than once she brushed against whin or furze bushes, and bruised herself against huge masses of

stone.

But now they began to descend by a path so difficult that she was forced to grasp Corrie's ragged coat, and cling to him till it became less precipitous. Repeatedly she asked if they were nearing the Grange, but, only receiving an inarticulate reply, tried to rely on the landlady's assertion that he knew his way thither blindfold; and reminded herself, as the darkness deepened, that the gloom and the mist might not affect a native as unpleasantly as they did a stranger.

But had Kythe been better acquainted with her poor guide, she would have discerned that he was almost as uneasy as herself. His disordered mind was easily thrown out of gear.

Had he been allowed

to shamble on without pause or delay, he would have led his charge safely to the door of the Grange; but after that rest on the edge of the moor, he lost his reckoning, and could not remember what he had been sent to do.

Suddenly he dropped the little travelling-bag entrusted to him, and threw up his hands, crying wildly

"I won't go any further! I'll not be drowned in Buttra pool!"

And before the startled Kythe had gathered the sense of his words, he had wrested his arm from her feeble grasp, and was rushing away.

She stooped for her bag-its contents were too precious to be lost, and sorely repenting, now it was too late, her refusal to stay at Bickley with the rough but good-natured landlady, prepared to follow her eccentric guide. If he insisted on returning to the town, she would not oppose it, for the loneliness of the route was even more oppressive to her than the darkness, and she found herself yearning to see the coarse red face of the woman who had offered to shelter her till the night was

CHAPTER II.

THE RAYNORS.

BREAKFAST at Hartswood Grange was always served with a punctuality that laggards, if there had been any in the old Yorkshire farmhouse, would have found inconvenient, for the tall stout elderly spinster who was wont to whisk into her seat at the head of the table before the clock in the hall had finished striking the hour, was up and away again as soon as the same venerable piece of mechanism chimed the second quarter, carrying with her on a small tray the sugar, marmalade, and all other comestibles that might have proved temptations to the serving-maidens, Lois and Nance.

As with the first meal of the day, so with every other portion of it; the seasons of rest and refreshment were brief, and the hours of work heavy and long at Hartswood. Noel Raynor, the owner of the farm, neither spared himself nor his labourers out of doors, and his half-sister, and elder by some twenty years, was equally energetic within; bustling from kitchen to dairy, from dairy to store-room, spying out dust and cobwebs where no one else suspected them, detecting waste and carelessness with a quickness startling to the culprits; and turning her own hand to everything, as she would avow that every mistress should if she wanted her house kept clean and in good order. Lois and Nance used to sigh sometimes for very weariness, but their vigilant mistress never tired; and while she did not spare herself, how could she be expected to spare others?

It was not because the farm yielded badly, or the daily bread was hard to earn, that the Raynors toiled and slaved week in, week out. Hartswood Grange and its broad pasture-lands lay in one of the most fertile valleys in the East Riding; to one of their ancestors, a bluff yeoman, the land had been sold by his feudal lord in the reign of Henry VII.; and, in spite of civil wars, and the changes of time, Adam Raynor's descendants had not only retained but increased their possessions. The present owner had wide cornfields extending from the foot of the knoll or fell on which stood the house, to a merry little beck that in winter often swelled to a torrent; and yet wider and further spread the broad grazing lands on which fed the sleek cattle that fetched so high a price in the market.

Neither was it because the family was large, and it behoved the elders to make provision for those depending on them. Noel Raynor was an only son, and had no near relations but the spinster half-sister already mentioned, and a widowed one, who, at the death of her husband, had returned as a matter of course to her childhood's home. Mrs. Robins was the only idler at the Grange; in her youth she had suffered from a severe attack of low fever, and when she regained her health she did not relinquish her invalid habits; but if she was a useless member of the household, she was not an expensive one. A small annuity enabled her to gratify her taste for eider-down wraps, soft shawls, and fur-lined

garments; and the larder at the Grange was too well supplied for the little delicacies her capricious appetite demanded to be felt as expensive items.

It must then have been with no higher incentive than the desire to be known all over the Riding as a successful farmer, that Noel Raynor toiled unceasingly and made good bargains, and added riches to riches, for he was not of a miserly disposition. Even those who called him close-fisted, knew that no one gave more liberally when a case of genuine distress was brought under his notice; but he was absorbed in his farm and his oxen, his losses and his gains; growing old before his time in this round of money. making and nought else.

On this particular morning he was so impatient to be off to oversee the labourers who were draining a bit of swampy land under his directions, that he left his last slice of ham untasted, gave short answers to Mrs. Robins-who, being denied her breakfast in bed when the winter was at an end, came to table in a scarlet dressing-gown and fur cape-and loudly rattled the coffee-cup his sister had neglected to re-fill.

It was not often that brisk practical Miss Raynor —or "Mia,” as she was generally called-forgot herself in this way, but an event had happened, rare enough, in her secluded methodical life, to be somewhat distracting. Our familiar friend, the postman, never found his way to Hartswood Grange; the business letters Mr. Raynor received being left for him at the toll-house, a couple of miles away, while his answers were sent to the post town when some one chanced to be going there, or carried in his own pocket when he attended the market. Such a primitive arrangement sounds odd to those who have not known what it is to live at a north-country farmhouse, to which there are no roads save the tracks made by the farmers' wagons, but the Raynors were accustomed to it, and never dreamed of going to the expense of making a safe and convenient route from the nearest highway to their own dwelling.

Miss Raynor had not corresponded with any one since her sister's bereavement and return home had spared her the laborious task of writing a few lines periodically, in a stiff cramped hand, and not without frequent reference to the dictionary; it was therefore all the more surprising when a boy, who had ridden over to the post-town on an errand, brought back with him a letter that was lying at the office for Miss Mia. He had given it to her with his parcels, and she had brought it to the breakfast-table, turning it over and over while she supped her porridgeMiss Mia despised wishy-washy tea and coffee in the morning-made wry faces on discovering that a faint odour of perfume hung about it; examined the post-mark-"London;" speculated as to whether the weak uncertain scrawl was masculine or the reverse; and finally stuck the unopened epistle against the cream-jug, where she could contemplate it till she felt at leisure to ascertain its contents.

But presently her curiosity grew too powerful for further delay; the letter was picked up again, the

"Not exactly;" and Miss Mia referred to her letter. "Hester did not go to America with the rest; she married a smart young chap from the south; a schoolmaster, who was staying with some friends at Kirkby. He's dead."

She stopped with the slightest possible break in her strong resonant tones, and Mrs. Robins, who talked softly and sleepily, rubbing one hand over the other with a caressing motion, took up the tale.

He was well-looking and clever, was young Anstey, and could talk like a book; and though I never saw as much in him as other people did, Hester Daunce wasn't the only girl who would have married him if she had been asked; was she, Mia, dear?”

"Maybe she wasn't," her sister replied, with a red spot burning on her cheek, though she spoke calmly enough now. "Speak out, Mog, if you speak at all. I'll not gainsay that I've had my foolish moments, like the rest; but he's dead, and it's his widow that writes to me!"

Mrs. Robins purred an apology, to which neither of her companions listened. Mia had bent her head over her letter, and Noel was gazing at her with a certain sense of surprise and amusement. Then this elderly matter-of-fact sister of his, whom he had never

ill, and wants change of air, and her mother seems to think she'd soon get strong if she was here."

"Other folks bairns are a great charge!" sighed Mrs. Robins. "I'm not myself for days after my cousin Jock's youngsters have been over the wolds to make holiday with us."

"There's nine of them," she was reminded, ." and mostly lads; yet we always give them a welcome, though they bother our heads with their clatter, and leave their footprints everywhere. We never say to them, 'We cannot be troubled with ye,' and yet they 're neither ill nor fatherless."

It was not so much in reproof of her sister's evident unwillingness to be inconvenienced by the presence in the house of a sick girl that Miss Raynor was speaking, but rather as if she were combating her

nay, worse off than I am, for she's among strangers. Poor soul, poor soul!"

"That'll do, Mog," cried Miss Mia, authoritatively. "You mustn't give yourself one of your bad headaches on a churning day; how will I find time to wait on you? Are you off, Noel? What answer would you have me send to Hester's letter?"

"Chut! you'll do as you like about it," he glanced back at the door to say. "Have the child if you choose; what difference will it make to me? It's you that will have the trouble of her."

And frowning in his annoyance at the manner his valuable time had been frittered away, Noel Raynor mounted the handsome black cob a boy had been leading to and fro in front of the house for the last half-hour, and rode away.

CHAPTER III.

A MOORLAND COTTAGE.

WHEN Kythe could no longer doubt that her untrustworthy guide had deserted her, she crouched on the damp ground, so thoroughly spent with fatigue and alarm, that for a little while she almost felt indifferent to her position. She was lost on the wild Yorkshire moors; she knew that somewhere near there must be a pond or lake into which a false step would pre

herself; "thinking of me as safe at Hartswood Grange, resting after my journey; enjoying the good things pressed upon me; and being pitied and petted by my mother's old friends.

"They are not friends," she cried aloud, in a passion of grief and anger. "They are cold and cruel, or they would not have left me to the mercy of such people as those at Bickley. If I can find my way back to the town, I will not go near them."

cipitate her, and therefore she might as well stay where she was; before morning, she told herself, drearily, it would be all over; it was impossible that in her weak state she could survive such exposure; she had come here only to die!

Then she began dreamily thinking of her mother and Alessie. About this hour the one would be sitting on the hearthrug basking in the warmth of the fire always lit for her in the evening, because she was chilly and peevish if denied it; and the other, by the light of her lamp, would be stitching at the dressmaking that was Mrs. Anstey's principal means of support.

"They will be thinking of me," said Kythe to

But she was too miserable to be angry long. Her coming into Yorkshire at all had been a mistake, ay, and one that would most probably cost her her life; and then she drew such a thrilling picture of some pedestrian coming by chance to the spot where Corrie had left her, and finding the unfortunate Kythe Anstey stretched on the earth lifeless, that it drew from her a burst of tears.

However, these tears relieved her aching head, and as that grew clearer she became conscious of the folly of yielding to despair. When the mist cleared off, she might discover that she was not so far from human help as she had been imagining. What if she raised her voice and tried to bring some one to her aid?

This suggestion was immediately acted on. Again and again she uttered a long shrill cry, that came back to her ear in muffled echoes; but the falling waters still mocked her with their ceaseless din, and no other sound broke the horrible monotony.

"When Corrie gets to the town they will ask him where he left me," she said to herself, "and when he tells them, they will come in search of me. It is only to have a little patience, and all will be well."

But this hope soon failed her. There was no dependence to be placed in an unfortunate being who would probably be cunning enough to conceal the fact that he had fled and left her she knew not where. Indeed, it was doubtful if the busy mistress of the inn would take the trouble of questioning him at all.

By this time the instinct of self-preservation had induced Kythe to move about in order to warm her trembling limbs, and she also contrived to swallow a few mouthfuls of the biscuits with which her mother had provided her. While thus engaged she fancied she heard a dog barking in the distance, and after listening attentively for a considerable time the short sharp yelp was again audible.

There must be a house-perhaps it was the Grange -at no very great distance, and she determined to make her way to it. Moving with caution, for walking in the dark was no easy task, especially as she was hampered by a dread that at any moment she might find herself on the brink of a pit or ravine, Kythe went onward; her heart panting fearfully whenever the roar of the waterfall became louder, or some dark object, generally a huge boulder, loomed through the obscurity like a giant standing there to bar her way to safety.

By-and-by the ground began to shelve rapidly downward, and ere she could ask herself the reason, she felt icy-cold water lapping round her ankles. She tried to retreat, but her terror confused her, and go which way she would the water still plashed about her feet. She had walked into the pond, his proximity to which had frightened Corrie away, and knew not how to extricate herself.

This last misfortune robbed her of all self-control. Afraid to stir, yet conscious that she could not retain her footing long if she stayed where she was, Kythe now screamed frantically for the assistance she had no hope of obtaining. But as she uttered these cries she looked upward, and when the solemn grandeur of the sky met her gaze, a strange calm fell upon her spirit. With an overwhelming sense of her utter helplessness, there mingled a conviction, felt, perhaps, for the first time, that even on the wild Yorkshire moor she was neither alone nor forgotten.

Involuntarily she clasped her hands and tried to pray, but the only words that her lips would form were those that she had learned at her mother's knee, learned, alas! by rote, and used without reverence— "Our Father." She murmured them again and again, and then there was a blank in her young life. She

still had the sound of the falling water in her ears; still seemed to see, high above the grey mist, the glittering panoply of the heavens, and yet really saw, really heard nothing till she became conscious that her hands were being gently chafed and the blood beginning to circulate in her numbed feet.

By slow degrees other facts dawned upon her. She was no longer struggling through the darkness, but seated in a cushioned chair, with blankets wrapped around her, while the ruddy flames of a wood fire were leaping and glowing directly in front of her. They shone on the rugged features of a greyhaired man, who, with his fingers clasped on the top of his stick, and his chin resting upon them, was attentively regarding her; they shone on the tall figure of a younger man, who stood a little in the background, leaning against the corner of a high oldfashioned mantleshelf. He, too, was looking down on Kythe, and between the men there sat a rough collie, who seemed to sympathise with his masters in their anxiety for the young girl's recovery; for when she opened her eyes and began to look about her, he wagged his tail and moved a little nearer to her chair.

But some one was holding a cup to her lips, and bidding her swallow the contents, and as she obeyed she saw, close to her own, the kindly face of a gentle little old woman-so old that she would soon reach the term of years of which the Psalmist speaks as a time of labour and sorrow, yet so bright and active that it was evident her age did not press heavily upon her. Her white hair was still abundant, and combed smoothly under a mutch or cap of white muslin, like the neckerchief which was folded across her bosom and pinned at her throat with a small silver brooch. Although her dark dress was of the coarsest material, and her heavy shoes clattered on the stones as she walked, she looked as if she had stepped out of a picture, so neat and trim was shepossessing, moreover, that indescribable air of purity and refinement that no surroundings can mar.

Neither did she speak with the loud voice and harsh tone of the Bickley landlady, the only Yorkshire woman with whom Kythe had come in contact. She was but an aged cottager; the hands with which she ministered to her guest were hard and brown with toil, and she lived in a cottage so small that Kythe fancied she could have touched the walls on either side by extending her arms, while the projecting chimney-breast was out of all proportion to its size. Yet it would have been impossible to speak to Anne Beacham, plain, old, and poor though she was, without feeling imbued with respect for her.

As soon as Kythe was able to sit up and ask questions, it was explained that her first cries for help had reached the ears of her hostess, as she sat knitting by the firelight. Mrs. Beacham did not think it necessary to add that her assertion that some one was either lost or hurt on the moors had been heard by her husband with incredulity. "It was Jock," she simply said, glancing at the younger