never heard her new "li'l Missy"
talk at such length before and she was impressed by the multitude of
words if not by their meaning. Besides, her quick ear had caught that
"Luna," and she now impatiently demanded:

"Howcome you' knows he' name, Miss Do'thy, an' nebah tole ole Dinah?"

"Oh! I don't know it, honey. Not her real one. That's a fancy one I
made up. She came to us in the moonlight and Luna stands for moon. So
that's why, and that's all! So go, good Dinah, and send your charge in
with Norah. All the others are down and waiting and, I hope, as hungry
for their breakfast as I am!"

Dinah departed, grumbling. In few things would she oppose her "Miss
Do'thy" but in the matter of this "unfinished" stranger she felt
strongly. However, she objected no more. If Mr. Seth Winters, her Miss
Betty's trusted friend, endorsed such triflin', ornery gwines-on, she
had no more to say. The blame was on his shoulders and not hers!

Since nobody knew a better name for the stranger than "Luna" it was
promptly accepted by all as a fitting one. She answered to it just as
she answered to anything else--and that was not at all. She allowed
herself to be led, fed, and otherwise attended, without resistance,
and if she was especially comfortable she wore a happy smile on her
small wrinkled face. But she never spoke and to the superstitious
servants her silence seemed uncanny:

"I just believe she could talk, if she wanted to, for she certainly
hears quick enough. She's real impish, witch-like, and she fair gives
me the creeps," complained Norah to a stable lad early on that Sunday
morning. "And I don't half like for Miss Dolly to 'point me special
nurse to the creatur'. I'd rather by far be left to me bedmakin' an'
dustin'. She may be one of them 'little people' lives at home in old
Ireland--that's the power to work ill charms on a body, if they wish
it."

"True ye say, Norah girl. 'Twas an' ill charm, she worked on me not an
hour agone. I was in the back porch, slippin' off me stable jacket
'fore eatin' my food, an' Dinah had the creature by the hand scrubbin'
a bit dirt off it. I was takin' my money out one pocket into another
and quick as chain-lightnin' grabs this queer old woman and hides the
money behind her. She may be a fool, indeed, but she knows money when
she sees it! and the look on her was like a miser!"

"Did you get it back, lad?"

"'Deed, that did I! If there's one more'n another this Luny dwarf
fears--and like