ey at once,
and he'll forbid you. Oh, dear! oh, dear! just before Christmas Eve,
too! The only night in the year! She has no time to change her mind;
and she'll be eaten up if she goes, I know she will. What villain told
you of this, child? Let me know, and he shall be punished at once."

"I shall not tell you that," said Elaine.

"Then everybody will be suspected," moaned Mistletoe. "Everybody. The
whole household. And we shall all be thrown to the Dragon. Oh, dear!
was there ever such a state of things?" The Governess betook herself
to weeping and wringing her hands, and Elaine stood watching her and
wondering how in the world she could find out more. She knew now just
enough to keep her from eating or sleeping until she knew everything.

"I don't agree with papa, at all," she said, during a lull in the
tears. This was the only remark she could think of.

"He'll lock you up, and feed you on bread and water till you
do--oo--oo!" sobbed Mistletoe; "and by that time we shall all be
ea--ea--eaten up!"

"But I'll talk to papa, and make him change his mind."

"He won't. Do you think you're going to make him care more about a lot
of sheep and cows than he does about his only daughter? Doesn't he pay
the people for everything the Dragon eats up? Who would pay him for
you, when you were eaten up?"

"How do you know that I should be eaten up?" asked Miss Elaine.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! and how could you stop it? What could a girl do
alone against a dragon in the middle of the night?"

"But on Christmas Eve?" suggested the young lady. "There might be
something different about that. He might feel better, you know, on
Christmas Eve."

"Do you suppose a wicked, ravenous dragon with a heathen tail is going
to care whether it is Christmas Eve or not? He'd have you for his
Christmas dinner, and that's all the notice he would take of the day.
And then perhaps he wouldn't leave the country, after all. How can you
be sure he would go away, just because that odious, vulgar legend says
so? Who would rely on a dragon? And so there you would be gone, and he
would be here, and everything!"

Mistletoe's tears flowed afresh; but you see she had said all that
Miss Elaine was so curious to know about, and the fatal secret was
out.

[Illustration: ELAINE MAKETH AN VNEXPECTED REMARK]

The Quarter-Bell rang for dinner, and both the women hastened to
their rooms to make ready; Mistletoe still boo-hooing and snuffling,
and declaring tha