d hid his face against her.

"But go on, Phil. He can't hurt you, you know. Do tell me. Where
were you?"

"I was sliding on the ice. Grandpapa was ever so long talking to
Bill Shepherd, and looking at the men cutting turnips, and I got
cold and tired, and ran about with Cousin Sedley till we got to the
big pond, and we began to slide, and the ice was so nice and hard--
you can't think. He showed me how to take a good long slide, and
said I might go out to the other end of the pond by the copse, by
the great old tree. And I set off, but before I got there, out it
jumped, out of the copse, and waved its arms, and made _that_ face."

He cowered into her bosom again and almost cried. Anne knew the
place, and was ready to start with dismay in her turn. It was such
a pool as is frequent in chalk districts--shallow at one end, but
deep and dangerous with springs at the other.

"But, Phil dear," she said, "it was well you were stopped; the ice
most likely would have broken at that end, and then where would
Nana's little man have been?"

"Cousin Sedley never told me not," said the boy in self-defence; "he
was whistling to me to go on. But when I tumbled down Ralph and
grandpapa and all _did_ scold me so--and Cousin Sedley was gone.
Why did they scold me, Nana? I thought it was brave not to mind
danger--like papa."

"It is brave when one can do any good by it, but not to slide on bad
ice, when one must be drowned," said Anne. "Oh, my dear, dear
little fellow, it was a blessed thing you saw _that_, whatever it
was! But why do you call it Pere--Penny Grim?"

"It was, Nana! It was a little man--rather. And one-sided looking,
with a bit of hair sticking out, just like the picture of Riquet-
with-a-tuft in your French fairy-book."

This last was convincing to Anne that the child must have seen the
phantom of seven years ago, since he was not repeating the popular
description he had given her in the morning, but one quite as
individual. She asked if grandpapa had seen it.

"Oh no; he was in the shed, and only came out when he heard Ralph
scolding me. Was it a wicked urchin come to steal me, Nana?"

"No, I think not," she answered. "Whatever it was, I think it came
because God was taking care of His child, and warning him from
sliding into the deep pool. We will thank him, Phil. 'He shall
give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.'"
And to that verse she soothed the tired child till h