her supper. Kitty spoke to her and passed on.
She strolled slowly up the steps, past the fateful garden wall and the
terrace above to the next terrace, where stood a pretty creeper-covered
summer-house. It was a warm night, and very still and airless.
Kitty sat down on the step in the doorway of the summer-house, and
staring before her into the dimness, tried to grasp all that had
happened, and what it would mean to them. She thought of their lazy
mornings, when they lay in bed till the spirit moved them to get up; of
the other mornings when they chose to rise early and go for a long walk
to Lantig, or down to Trevoor, the stretch of desolate moorland which
lay about a mile outside the town, and was so full of surprises--of
unexpected dips and trickling streams, of dangerous bogs, and stores of
fruits and berries and unknown delights--that, well though they knew it,
they had not yet discovered the half of them. She thought of their
excursions, such as to-day's, to Wenmere Woods, and those others to
Helbarrow Tors. They usually took a donkey and cart, and food for a
long day, when they went to this last. Her mind travelled, too, back
over their favourite games and walks, and what she, perhaps, loved best
of all, those drives, when she would have the carriage and Prue all to
herself, and would wander with them over the face of the country for
miles.

At those times she felt no nervousness, no loneliness, nothing but pure,
unalloyed happiness. Sometimes she would take a book with her, and when
she came to a spot that pleased her, she would turn Prue into the hedge
to graze, while she herself would stay in the carriage and read, or
dismount and climb some hedge, or tree, or gate, and gaze about her, or
lie on the heather, thinking or reading; and by-and-by she would turn
the old horse's head homewards, and arrive at last laden with
honeysuckle or dog-roses, bog-myrtle, ferns, or rich-brown bracken and
berries.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COMING OF ANNA.

The next week or two were full of change, excitement, and unrest.
No one knew what the next day might bring forth, and the children never
felt sure of anything. Any hour might bring a surprise to them, and it
was not likely to be a pleasant surprise--of that they felt sure.
One of the changes decided on was that Dan was to go very soon--the next
term, in fact--to a public school as a boarder.

To all but Dan the news came as an overwhelming blow. Katherine and
E