e took to haunting the place, and report declared that he
had talked loudly and coarsely of his cousin's death and his uncle's
dotage, and of his soon being called in to manage the property for
the little heir--insomuch that Sir Edmund Nutley thought it
expedient to let him know that Charles, on going on active service
soon after he had come of age, had sent home a will, making his son,
who was a young gentleman of very considerable property on his
mother's side, ward to his grandfather first, and then to Sir Edmund
Nutley himself and to Dr. Woodford.

CHAPTER XXVI: THE LEGEND OF PENNY GRIM

"O dearest Marjorie, stay at hame,
For dark's the gate ye have to go,
For there's a maike down yonder glen
Hath frightened me and many me."

HOGG.

"Nana," said little Philip in a meditative voice, as he looked into
the glowing embers of the hall fire, "when do fairies leave off
stealing little boys?"

"I do not believe they ever steal them, Phil."

"Oh, yes they do;" and he came and stood by her with his great
limpid blue eyes wide open. "Goody Dearlove says they stole a
little boy, and his name was Penny Grim."

"Goody Dearlove is a silly old body to tell my boy such stories,"
said Anne, disguising how much she was startled.

"Oh, but Ralph Huntsman says 'tis true, and he knew him."

"How could he know him when he was stolen?"

"They put another instead," said the boy, a little puzzled, but too
young to make his story consistent. "And he was an elf--a cross
spiteful elf, that was always vexing folk. And they stole him again
every seven years. Yes--that was it--they stole him every seven
years."

"Whom, Phil; I don't understand--the boy or the elf?" she said,
half-diverted, even while shocked at the old story coming up in such
a form.

"The elf, I think," he said, bending his brows; "he comes back, and
then they steal him again. Yes; and at last they stole him quite--
quite away--but it is seven years, and Goody Dearlove says he is to
be seen again!"

"No!" exclaimed Anne, with an irrepressible start of dismay. "Has
any one seen him, or fancied so?" she added, though feeling that her
chance of maintaining her rational incredulity was gone.

"Goody Dearlove's Jenny did," was the answer. "She saw him stand
out on the beach at night by moonlight, and when she screamed out,
he was gone like the snuff of a candle."

"Saw him? What was he like?" said Anne, struggling for the
dispassionate tone o