nded her godmother.

"The nastiest-lukin' baste I iver set eyes on," said Fly earnestly.

"If it had been Phoebus I think I should have killed you," said Miss
Black.

Fly looked at her in a bewildered way.

"You are quite sure it wasn't Phoebus--not my darling cat?" said her
godmother sternly.

A horrid fear seized Fly. Phoebus was not a boy, he was a cat--surely,
surely not that yellow cat--such a thing would be too terrible.

"Was it a large, dignified creature with yellow fur?" her godmother
questioned.

"It was not," said Fly emphatically. "It was a wee, scraggy cat, black
all over, with a white spot on its tail."

"Thank God for it," said Miss Black. "If it had been Phoebus I should
have died."

Fly was shaking all over; she felt like a murderess. If only her
godmother knew the truth! It was, of course, hopeless to ask God to
make the cat alive again. The only thing was to get her godmother
safely away from Rowallan, and pray that she might never come back.
Anxiously she watched the lady go down the steps. The donkey carriage
was waiting. In another minute she would be gone; but, with her foot
on the step of the carriage, Miss Black paused.

"I must see the garden; it was so pretty once, and I may never be back
again," she said. Fly led the way. The burden on her chest lifted a
little as she heard that her godmother would not be likely to come
again. It would not take long to see the garden, and then she would go
for ever. When they were half way down the path the garden gate
opened, and Honeybird came through, wheeling a barrow. She had Lull's
old crape bonnet on her head. Fly had a moment of sickening fright.

"I'm comin' home from a feeneral," Honeybird called out cheerfully.
"I've just been buryin' my ould husband, an' now I'm a widdy woman."

Fly breathed again: Phoebus was safely buried.

"How very nice," said Miss Black.

"Ye wouldn't say that if ye knowed who her husband was," Fly thought.

"Would ye 'a' liked to be a mourner?" Honeybird asked, with a smile at
Miss Black. "'Cause if ye would I can dig him up, an' bury him again."

Fly grimaced at her in an agony of terror. "Lull wants ye this very
minute," she said hurriedly. Honeybird nodded to them, and took her
barrow again, and went on round the house.

By this time the sun had set, and the garden was full of that strange,
luminous twilight that comes with frost in the air.

A cluster of late roses in Patsy's garde