rs lately of poachers being
about. Perhaps he was a thief, and would go to the Low Farm when all the
men had gone home from work, and Mrs. Shaw would be unprotected. She
reflected that if she withheld the information the man would probably
get it from some one else, and she decided that it would be better to
answer his questions, but to let him believe that Mrs. Shaw's husband
was at home, so she replied,--

"The Low Farm is down at the bottom of the hill, a little to the right,
and people of the name of Shaw keep it."

"Oh," said the man, as if taken aback, "there is a Mr. Shaw then?"

"Oh yes," replied Marjory, delighted that her bait had taken, as she
thought. Then she said quickly, "I must be going now."

"Good-night, miss, and thank you for the information. Please don't say
you've seen me, if you can help it."

Marjory thought that the man's voice sounded hard and fierce, and,
somewhat frightened, she hurried away without a look behind her. A
sudden thought struck her as she ran through the garden. Could this
stranger possibly be her father? Her absent father was continually in
her thoughts; often and often she pictured to herself various ways in
which he might return to her. This man had begun by asking for Dr.
Hunter. For one wild moment the impulse to turn back was upon her, and
then she told herself that it was impossible. She did not know many
people, but she felt sure that this man was not quite like her uncle, or
Mr. Forester, or Dr. Morison. Surely her father was not a rough-spoken
man like this! Besides, would she not have known him at once? No;
probably her first theory was the right one, and this was some poacher
or thief--and yet he did not seem quite like a bad man either. It was a
mystery, and she wished that Blanche or Alan had been with her.

Dr. Hunter was not at home for tea; he had gone to the minister's,
Lisbeth said, but would be back for supper.

When supper-time came Marjory gave her uncle an account of the day's
doings, but did not mention her encounter in the wood.

"You've had a most exciting day, on the whole," he said. "I didn't know
you could box, though; surely Miss Waspe doesn't teach you that as an
accomplishment!"

Marjory laughed rather shamefacedly.

"No," she replied; "Peter showed me, but only a little. He says he was
very good at it when he was a boy."

"So you knocked over this fourteen-year-old boy like a ninepin. Well, to
be sure, I _am_ surprised." And the doct