t want to take her away with her,
but would live there always with herself, and granny, and granp.

Of her father's coming she never spoke but once, and that was when,
with a frightened face, she said to her grandmother, "Granny, if
father comes for me you won't let him take me away with him, will
you?" And granny had reassured her with a sturdy--

"Why, bless your heart, child, your father isn't likely to want you,
I can tell you, and he wouldn't dare to come here and show himself to
me, I reckon; don't you be afraid, now, granny'll take care of you."

So Jessie tried not to be, and as the years went by, and nothing was
heard from either of her parents, her fears lessened, though she
could never think of her father without a shudder of dread lest he
should some day come to take her away.

Three years had passed peacefully away, and Jessie was about eight
years old when the next letter from Lizzie came to her parents.

Jessie never, to the end of her life, could forget the morning that
letter reached them. It was a wet, dark November morning, and she
had been lying awake for a long time listening to the patter-patter,
swish-swish of the rain pouring against her window. She had heard
her grandfather go down and open the front door as usual, and light
the fire in the kitchen; then she heard him fill the kettle at the
pump and put it on to boil. After that he went out again to open the
hen-house door, and carry the hens their breakfast. She heard her
grandmother go down the stairs, and a few moments later she heard
heavy footsteps come splashing up the wet garden path, and very soon
go down again.

Jessie got up and dressed herself, and made her way down. She had
been singing to herself while she was dressing, so had not noticed
anything unusual in the sounds and doings below stairs. But as she
went down she did notice that the house seemed very quiet and still,
and that there was no smell of breakfast cooking. Usually at this
time her grandfather was busy in the scullery cleaning boots and
knives, or doing some job or other, while her grandmother bustled
back and forth, talking loudly, that her voice might reach above the
frizzling of the frying-pan. But to-day there was a strange, most
marked silence, broken only by the singing of the kettle, the plash
of the rain outside, and a curious sound which Jessie could not make
out, only she thought it sounded as though some one was in pain.

When she reached the