a walk.

Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers
in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam
of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her
trouble had long ago been quenched.

When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the
mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family,
dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and
received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her
treasure and laid it on her knees--the child was now quiet, through
exhaustion.

"I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has
been overlooked--ill-wished."

Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror.

"That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall.
"Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a
sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast
an evil eye on it."

The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems
ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind.

"Who has done it?" she asked below her breath.

"That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one
who doesn't love the babe, that's sure."

"A man or a woman?"

Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant.

"A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left
han' side."

Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other
woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless infant,
now on her lap.

"What can I do?" she asked.

"There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the
child--though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone,
and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the
ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it."

"I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the
weather is too cold, baby too ill."

Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she
sobbed forth--

"A little fish swims in the well.
So in my heart does baby dwell,
The king has sceptre, crown and ball,
You are my sceptre, crown and all."

She went home sobbing, and hugging her child, holding it away from
the house of Sarah Rocliffe, lest that woman might be looking forth
at her window, and deepen by her glance the spell that held and
broke down her child.

Towards evening fall Jonas returned.

Directly he crossed the threshold, with palpitating eagerness
Me