try."

"Oh! ah!" replied George, "I've thought of it, and it's all right. Can
you be at the old place the day after to-morrow?"

"That can I," said Lee, "with much pleasure."

"You'll come alone this time, I suppose," said George. "I suppose you
don't want to share our little matter with the whole country?"

"No fear, Mr. George; I will be there at eight punctual, and alone."

"Well, bye-bye," said George, and rode off.

It was getting late in the evening when he started, and ere he reached
home it was nearly dark. For the last mile his road lay through
forest-land: noble oaks, with a plentiful under-growth of holly,
over-shadowed a floor of brown leaves and red fern; and at the end of
the wood nearest home, where the oaks joined their own fir plantations,
one mighty gnarled tree, broader and older than all the rest, held
aloft its withered boughs against the frosty sky.

This oak was one of the bogie haunts of the neighbourhood. All sorts of
stories were told about it, all of which George, of course, believed;
so that when his horse started and refused to move forward, and when he
saw a dark figure sitting on the twisted roots of the tree, he grew
suddenly cold, and believed he had seen a ghost.

The figure rose, and stalked towards him through the gathering gloom;
he saw that it held a baby in its arms, and that it was tall and
noble-looking. Then a new fear took possession of him, not
supernatural; and he said in a low voice--"Ellen!"

"That was my name once, George Hawker," replied she, standing beside
him, and laying her hand upon his horse's shoulder. "I don't know what
my name is now, I'm sure; It surely can't remain the same, and me so
altered."

"What on earth brings you back just at this time, in God's name?" asked
George.

"Hunger, cold, misery, drunkenness, disease. Those are the merry
companions that lead me back to my old sweetheart. Look here, George,
should you know him again?"

She held up a noble child about a year old, for him to look at. The
child, disturbed from her warm bosom, began to wail.

"What! cry to see your father, child?" she exclaimed. "See what a
bonnie gentleman he is, and what a pretty horse he rides, while we
tread along through the mire."

"What have you come to me for, Ellen?" asked George. "Do you know that
if you are seen about here just now you may do me a great injury?"

"I don't want to hurt you, George," she replied; "but I must have
money. I cannot work, an