Genre Fiction. Page - 190

on that snow-shrouded lake was in distress. The sound ceased, and the gale bore in only the ordinary storm and fog signals. Corvet recognized the foghorn at the lighthouse at the end of the government pier; the light, he knew, was turning white, red, white, red, white behind the curtain of sleet; other steam vessels, not in distress, blew their blasts; the long four of the steamer calling for help cut in again.

Corvet stopped, drew up his shoulders, and stood staring out toward the lake, as the signal blasts of distress boomed and boomed again. Color came now into his pale cheeks for an instant. A siren swelled and shrieked, died away wailing, shrieked louder and stopped; the four blasts blew again, and the siren wailed in answer.

A door opened behind Corvet; warm air rushed out, laden with sweet, heavy odors--chocolate and candy; girls' laughter, exaggerated exclamations, laughter again came with it; and two girls holding their muffs before their faces passed by.

"See you to-night, dear.

Sir Alexander's record, you know--he made it from here in six days!"

"I don't remember that book very well," said Jesse; "I'll read it again some time."

"We'll all read it each day as we go on, and in that way understand it better when we get through," ventured John. "But listen; I thought I heard them in the bush."

It was as he had said. The swish of bushes parting and the occasional sound of a stumbling footfall on the trail now became plainer. They heard the voice of Moise break out into a little song as he saw the light of the fire flickering among the trees. He laughed gaily as he stepped into the ring of the cleared ground, let down one end of the canoe which he was carrying, and with a quick twist of his body set it down gently upon the leaves.

"You'll mak' good time, hein?" he asked of the boys, smiling and showing a double row of white teeth.

"What did I tell you, boys?" demanded Rob. "Here they are, and it isn't quite dark yet."

The next moment Ale

rents, her mother within a few months. Mrs. Meldrum had known them, disapproved of them, considerably avoided them: she had watched the girl, off and on, from her early childhood. Flora, just twenty, was extraordinarily alone in the world--so alone that she had no natural chaperon, no one to stay with but a mercenary stranger, Mrs. Hammond Synge, the sister-in-law of one of the young men I had just seen. She had lots of friends, but none of them nice: she kept picking up impossible people. The Floyd-Taylors, with whom she had been at Boulogne, were simply horrid. The Hammond Synges were perhaps not so vulgar, but they had no conscience in their dealings with her.

"She knows what I think of them," said Mrs. Meldrum, "and indeed she knows what I think of most things."

"She shares that privilege with most of your friends!" I replied laughing.

"No doubt; but possibly to some of my friends it makes a little difference. That girl doesn't care a button. She knows best of all what I think of Flor

rade winds by the oppositeside of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger therelong that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for amaternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capriciousennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontentedface, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of painpass over his wife's face as the young girl suddenly and half-laughingly broke away and fluttered off towards the old garden.

Mrs. Peyton looked up and caught her husband's eye.

"I am afraid Susy finds it more dull here every time she returns,"she said, with an apologetic smile. "I am glad she has invited oneof her school friends to come for a visit to-morrow. You know,yourself, John," she added, with a slight partisan attitude, "thatthe lonely old house and wild plain are not particularly lively foryoung people, however much they may suit YOUR ways."

"It certainly must be dull if she can't stand it for three weeks inthe year," said her husban

r, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to go; but generally there was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English or American woman of any class.

That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested in the town and identified as a military desert

try, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher's grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them. However, when the family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be without avail, for, on their neighbors' trees or their own, the English apples had proved worthless. Whether it were some favoring quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself, the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in perfection, but nowhere else.

"There ain't no such apples as these, to my mind," said Mrs. Martin, as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a sufficient first bite.

"There's only one little bough that bears any great," said Mrs. Thacher, "but it's come to that once before, and

perityand safety of the inhabitants, at once by the profuseness ofembellishment in those newly erected, and by the neglect of thejealous precautions required in former days of confusion andmisrule. Thus it was with the village of Lynwood, where, amongthe cottages and farm-houses occupying a fertile valley inSomersetshire, arose the ancient Keep, built of gray stone,and strongly fortified; but the defences were kept up ratheras appendages of the owner's rank, than as requisite for hisprotection; though the moat was clear of weeds, and full ofwater, the drawbridge was so well covered with hard-troddenearth, overgrown at the edges with grass, that, in spite ofthe massive chains connecting it with the gateway, it seemedpermanently fixed on the ground. The spikes of the portcullisfrowned above in threatening array, but a wreath of ivy wastwining up the groove by which it had once descended, and thearchway, which by day stood hospitably open, was at night onlyguarded by two large oaken doors, yie

f High Mass had just been sung there, and--"

He cut me short, and there was a certain grave solemnity in his manner that struck me almost with awe.

"I know you are a railer," he said, and the phrase coming from this mild old gentleman astonished, me unutterably. "You are a railer and a bitter railer; I have read articles that you have written, and I know your contempt and your hatred for those you call Protestants in your derision; though your grandfather, the vicar of Caerleon-on-Usk, called himself Protestant and was proud of it, and your great-grand-uncle Hezekiah, ffeiriad coch yr Castletown--the Red Priest of Castletown--was a great man with the Methodists in his day, and the people flocked by their thousands when he administered the Sacrament. I was born and brought up in Glamorganshire, and old men have wept as they told me of the weeping and contrition that there was when the Red Priest broke the Bread and raised the Cup. But you are a railer, and see nothing but the outside and

" said Uncle Dick, after a time. "I doubt if we could do it all the way by boat by September. But I'll see your teacher, here in St. Louis, where we're all going to winter this year, and arrange with him to let you study outside for the first few weeks of the fall term in case we don't get back. You'll have to work while you travel, understand that."

The boys all agreed to this and gave their promise to do their best, if only they could be allowed to make this wonderful trip over the first and greatest exploring trail of the West.

"It can perhaps be arranged," said Uncle Dick.

"You mean, it has been arranged!" said Rob. "You've spoken to our school principal!"

"Well, yes, then! And you can cut off a little from the spring term, too. But it's all on condition that you come back also with a knowledge of that much history, additional to your regular studies."

"Oh, agreed to that!" said Rob; while John and Jesse began to drop their books and eagerly come closer to their older gu

Griselda wondered, if this were so, how it was that Miss Grizzel took such liberties with them herself, but she said nothing.

"Here is my last summer's pot-pourri," continued Miss Grizzel, touching a great china jar on a little stand, close beside the cabinet. "You may smell it, my dear."

Nothing loth, Griselda buried her round little nose in the fragrant leaves.

"It's lovely," she said. "May I smell it whenever I like, Aunt Grizzel?"

"We shall see," replied her aunt. "It isn't every little girl, you know, that we could trust to come into the great saloon alone."

"No," said Griselda meekly.

Miss Grizzel led the way to a door opposite to that by which they had entered. She opened it and passed through, Griselda following, into a small ante-room.

"It is on the stroke of ten," said Miss Grizzel, consulting her watch; "now, my dear, you shall make acquaintance with our cuckoo."

The cuckoo "that lived in a clock!" Griselda gazed round her eagerly