XV.III.

REDRUTH SURRENDERS HIS ACCOUNTS.

S Sir Rohan announced his journey and the

As length of his stay to Redruth, after giving

direction for certain repairs and decorations, he added, "When I return, Miss Miriam comes with me. I shall bring my old house a mistress."

Hardly could he repress his smile at the man's amazement.

"Dear soul!" he said. "Then we 're to have a Lady, after all. I knew she never came for naught!" And for the first time, he dared approach his master on the subject of his conduct in the cellar the day she went away, admitting his faults and contrition. But he found that it had already passed from Sir Rohan's mind.

"We'll forget that, Redruth," said he. "I may have spoken too harshly; it was of no consequence."

On entering the housekeeper's room, Mr. Redruth found the table spread for tea, and his wife knitting by the fire with her two maids, to whom magisterially he imparted the news.

"Lady Belvidere!" exclaimed Mrs. Redruth. "Pretty creatur! Well, I knew it all along." "You knew it?"

"What, but that, driv him to his fever?" "Drove, my dear."

"Well, drove or driv, it 's all one."

"To think of her coming into this nest of ghosts!" said one of the maids.

orphanless child."

"The poor,

"But she's laid them all, Nelly. They haven't walked since she came," replied the other.

"Indeed, she's not, Nan. They 've left master, maybe, but I see 'em, when I went in with the tray, the other night, round that brisk man, the solicitor, What's-his-name, that comes from abroad. And the head-piece was standing right behind him, with her hands down, meek as- as anything," concluded Nelly, for want of a better simile.

"Well for sure, Nell, you 're a downright simpleton! That was the statute of Venus," said Nan jeeringly.

"Venice! I guess it is n't that we see every evening, all white and blue, swairthing over the flags out there, that puts me all in a fuz! Nor the Walker! It's not that we hear, whenever the dark falls, come tramp, tramp, tramp, along the hall, with a low whistle of a laugh anent the very door, and then tramp, tramp, off again, and the swish and trail of her long dress following, till back she come with liker a sob, and sweeps the floor all night till cock-crowing, as if the clouds had got into the house and rained steady. It's so lonely like near the place."

"Master must 'a done somethin' awful once, or some of his kin," whispered Nan, shiveringly. "Humph! Miss Miriam may say what she choose. No such thing as bugs round here! It comes just as near as a fourpence to a groat, if it an't one. That's all."

"Now, Nell, maybe we was fools, and frightened at master's ways, and took silly things for spirits. There's the gypsies,-who knows? Maybe it was bats, or moonshine, or clothes on the line

"There's no line there, and there warn't a moon, the gypsies had n't come, and we know bats when we see 'em. Besides, May-bees don't

fly this time o' year, I've heard say. If we was fools, then I know who was the biggest one, that summer night when they ran in cold as stone, eyes all starting out and black round about, and mouthing, and looking stupid and brutelike! A body was white as a curd then. I would n't crow before"

"Hist now, girls!" said Mrs. Redruth, for it was getting dark. "I never see none I could n't explain away myself, nor I don't believe you have. Did you, Redruth?"

"Well," answered Redruth, evasively, "a good many years ago, fifteen-sixteen-eighteen years ago, one dark night, I saw a light on the lawn, where the white camellia-bush is, and there 's nothing whiter than that when the buds are blown; they are like stars in a sky-"

"But the lights?" queried Nell.

"O, it was only one; but dancing round high and low, now here, now there, dancing like mad. I should have said, if it had been anywhere else, they were thieves with a lantern; but it could n't be that, you know. One would n't need a lantern to pick the blossoms, though they did look a little soiled next day, and the

earth was a little loose round the tree; but that might have been the rain, it rained before light."

"Pshaw, Redruth, it was fireflies! There, we'll quit the matter, and say no more about it!" Whereupon, Mrs. Redruth, snatching her ball from the kitten, proceeded to make tea, and the maids to speculate about the master and his bride.

But after a few moments Redruth rose and left the gossiping conclave. He felt ill, he said to himself, ill and numb, and must take something to send a shiver over him. The old steward's remedies always lay in the cellar, and thither, with a long glass, he betook himself.

Mr. Redruth's family from father to son had, for many generations, held much such a position as he did; and living a somewhat idle and luxurious life, had transmitted to the last weak offshoot of their race, not, indeed, titles and escutcheons, but a certain inheritance not liable to be lessened by superintendence of his master's wines. And if great dynasties run rankly, at last, to insanity, and my lord plumes himself upon his father's gout,—if all hereditary traits