? Well, here's the line. Come as soon as you please, after I
am landed."

Oliver had been in the basket, out of reach, during this conversation.
He now flung down the basket line, and returned Roger was not long in
following, with some of his game, some fire-wood, and his dog. He left
his bedding hidden in the thicket, and the tinder-box in a dry hole in a
tree, that he might come back to his island at any time, in case of
quarrel with the Linacres.

Poor little George did indeed look ill. He was lying across Mildred's
lap, very fretful, his cheeks burning hot, his lips dry, and his mouth
sore. Ailwin had put a charm round his neck the day before; but he did
not seem to be the better for it. Busy as she was, she tied on another
the moment she heard from Oliver that Roger was coming. When Roger and
the basket darkened the window, Ailwin and Mildred called out at once,
"Here he is!" George turned his hot head that way, and repeated, "Here
he is!"

"Yes, here I am! And here's what I have brought," said Roger, throwing
down two rabbits and a leveret. He took up the leveret presently, and
brought it to George, that he might feel how soft the fur was. The
child flinched from him at first, but was persuaded, at length, to
stroke the leveret's back, and play with its paws.

"That boy has some good in him after all," thought Ailwin, "unless this
be a trick. It is some trick, I'll be bound."

"You are tight and dry enough here," said Roger, glancing round the
room. "By the look of the house from the hill, I thought you had been
all in ruins."

The minds of Ailwin and Mildred were full of the events of the night;
and they forgot that it was Roger they were speaking to when they told
what their terrors had been. Ailwin had started up in the middle of the
night, and run to the door; and, on opening it, had seen the stars
shining bright down into the house. The roof of the other side of the
house was clean gone. When Mildred looked out from the same place at
sunrise, she saw the water spread almost under her feet. The floor of
the landing-place, and the ceiling of one of the lower rooms had been
broken up, and the planks were floating about.

"Where are they?" asked Roger, quickly. "To be sure you did not let
them float off, along with the kitchen things that got away through the
wall?"

Mildred did not know that any care had been taken of the planks. Roger
was off to see, saying that they might be glad o