don't like them at all. They all
went away this morning. I was _so_ glad, for they won't be back again
for a good long while, and Meerta and Bungo won't get any more hard
knocks, and whippings, till they come back."

"Ha! they won't come back in a hurry--not these ones at least," said Sam
in a voice that frightened Letta, inducing her to cling closer to Robin.

"Don't be afraid, little one," said the latter, "he's only angry with
the bad men that went away this morning. Are there any of them still
remaining here?"

"What, in the caves?"

"Ay, in the caves--or anywhere?"

"No they're all away. Nobody left but me and Meerta and blind Bungo."

"Is it a long time since you came here?"

"O yes, very _very_ long!" replied the child, with a sad weary look; "so
long that--that you can't think."

"Come, dear; tell us all about it," said Robin in a coaxing tone,--"all
about mamma and how you came here."

"Very well," said Letta, quite pleased with the request. Clearing her
little throat with the emphasis of one who has a long story to tell, she
began with the statement that "mamma was a darling."

From this, as a starting-point, she gave an amazing and rambling account
of the joys and toys of infancy, which period of life seemed to have
been spent in a most beautiful garden full of delicious fruits and
sunshine, where the presiding and ever present angel was mamma. Then
she told of a dark night, and a sudden awaking in the midst of flames
and smoke and piercing cries, when fierce men seized her and carried her
away, put her into a ship, where she was dreadfully sick for a long long
time, until they landed on a rocky island, and suddenly she found
herself "there,"--pointing as she spoke to the little garden below them.
While she was yet describing her feelings on arrival, a voice shouting
Letta was heard, and she instantly struggled from Robin's knee.

"O let me go!" she cried. "It's Meerta calling me, and I never let her
call twice."

"Why? Would she be angry?"

"No, but she would be sorry. Do let me go!"

"But won't you let us go too?" asked Sam.

"O yes, if you want to come. This is the road," she added, as she took
Robin by the hand; "and you must be very careful how you go, else you'll
fall and hurt yourselves."

Great was the amazement, and not slight the alarm of Meerta, when she
beheld her little charge thus piloting two strangers down the hill. She
spoke hurriedly to her blind companion, an