ting, shout on shout, along the ridge and down among the
tree-tops, reached even to the meadow far below, where in the sudden
hush of the lark's singing the merrymakers paused and looked up to
listen.

But wait awhile! They laugh best who laugh last.

CHAPTER IX.

BY LERRYN WATER.

"O will you accept of the mus-e-lin so blue,
To wear in the morning and to dabble in the dew?"
_Old Song_.

Miss Marty had duly visited the meadow and eaten and paid for her
breakfast of bread and cream. But she had eaten it in some
constraint, sitting alone. She had never asserted her position as
the Major's kinswoman in the eyes of Miss Pescod and the ladies of
Miss Pescod's clan, who were inclined to regard her as a poor
relation, a mere housekeeper, and to treat her as a person of no
great account. On the other hand, the majority of the merrymakers
deemed her, no doubt, a stiff stuck-up thing; whereas she would in
fact have given much to break through her shyness and accost them.
For these reasons, the meal over, she was glad to pay her sixpence
and escape from the throng back to the woodland paths and solitude.

The children by this time had grown tired of straying, and were
trooping back to the village. Fewer and fewer met her as she
followed the shore; the two slumberers were gone from the mossy bank;
by and by the procession dried up, so to speak, altogether.
She understood the reason when a drum began to bang overhead behind
the woods and passed along the ridge, still banging. The Gallants
were returning; and apparently flushed with victory, since between
the strokes she could hear their distant shouts of laughter.

At one moment she fancied they must be descending through the woods:
for a crackling of the undergrowth, some way up the slope, startled
and brought her to a halt. But no; the noise passed along the ridge
towards the village. The crackling sound must have come from some
woodland beast disturbed in his night's lair.

She retraced her way slowly to the spot where she had disembarked;
but when she reached it, Cai and the boat had vanished. No matter;
Cai was a trustworthy fellow, and doubtless would be back ere long.
Likely enough he had pulled across to the farther shore to bear a
hand in what Troy euphemistically called the "salvage" of the
long-boats' cargoes. Happy in her solitude, rejoicing in her
extended liberty, Miss Marty strolled on, now ga