er, and such a fall prove fatal to her also, Mr. Bates would be
sorry. It gave her a sensation of pleasure to know that such a mishap
would annoy and distress him very much; and, at the very moment of this
sensation, she drew back and tested the firmness of the ground about its
roots before resigning herself unreservedly to the tree again. When she
had resumed her former position with a feeling of perfect safety, she
continued for a few minutes to dilate in fancy upon the suffering that
would be caused by the death her whim had suggested. She was not a cruel
girl, not on the whole ill-natured, yet such is human nature that this
idea was actually the first that had given her satisfaction for many
hours. How sorry Mr. Bates would be, when he found her dead, that he had
dared to speak so angrily to her! It was, in a way, luxurious to
contemplate the pathos of such an artistic death for herself, and its
fine effect, by way of revenge, upon the guardian who had made himself
intolerable to her.

From her post of observation she now saw, what had not before been
observed by any one, that where rock and earth had fallen treacherously
under her father's tread, another portion of the bank was loosened ready
to fall. Where this loosening--the work no doubt of the frost--had taken
place, there was but a narrow passage between the ravine and the house,
and she was startled to be the first to discover what was so essential
for all in the house to know. For many days the myriad leaves of the
forest had lain everywhere in the dry atmosphere peculiar to a Canadian
autumn, till it seemed now that all weight and moisture had left them.
They were curled and puckered into half balloons, ready for the wind to
toss and drift into every available gap. So strewn was this passage with
such dry leaves, which even now the wind was drifting upon it more
thickly, that the danger might easily have remained unseen. Then, as
fancy is fickle, her mind darted from the pleasurable idea of her own
death to consider how it would be if she did not make known her
discovery and allowed her enemy to walk into the snare. This idea was
not quite as attractive as the former, for it is sweeter to think of
oneself as innocently dead and mourned, than as guilty and performing
the office of mourner for another; and it was of herself only, whether
as pictured in Bates's sufferings or as left liberated by his death,
that the girl was thinking. Still it afforded relaxatio