lady had bidden her,
especially as the little bed was so soft and warm. She lay quietly,
looking round the room at the pictures which hung on the walls, and at
the various articles of furniture it contained; but after a while she
began to grow tired of this, and to wonder when the lady would come to
her. After an hour or so she crept to the door, and turned the handle,
thinking to see if any one was about yet; but she found that she was
locked in, so there was nothing else to be done but to get back into
bed.

[Illustration]

The time passed very slowly; still no one came. Elsie grew very
restless, and did not at all like the feeling of being locked up away
from Duncan. Still these people were gentlefolk, and rich. It was quite
impossible they could mean any harm. She could hear distant sounds of
people moving in the house. Could it be possible that they had forgotten
all about her? She had heard a clock strike seven, then eight, now it
was striking nine. At home, she would have been across the moor and
back, have had her breakfast, and been at school by this time.

Much as she stood in awe of her mysterious benefactress, she grew at
last so restless that she could be still no longer, but jumped up, and
began to wash and dress herself.

She was standing before the glass, greatly admiring her appearance in
the new frock and hat, and wondering how the lady had really got them,
when the key turned, and the fairy mother herself entered. She was
dressed in long trailing black garments, with a white cap on her head,
and looked, Elsie thought, wonderfully sweet and pretty. But as her eye
fell upon Elsie the sweetness vanished, and the angry expression that
had once before so terrified her came back.

"I told you not to get up till I came," she said, in a threatening
voice.

"I thought you had forgotten; it was so late," Elsie faltered.

"You are not to think," the lady said. "You have disobeyed me once. The
second time you will find yourself, before nightfall, back on the top of
the mountain, as I warned you before. And far worse things than that
will befall you, and your brother too. Take care! I shall not warn you
again. Now, put on these stockings I have brought you, and let me see if
these shoes fit."

They were a pair of fine woven black stockings, for which Elsie
willingly changed her thick grey knitted ones. The shoes were a little
long, but were soft and easy to her feet, and seemed to Elsie very
beautiful