no further remark, only ate her breakfast and hurried off to school - for work had to go on, whatever befell. It was the last day before the holidays, and should have been a bright and

had an attack of neuralgia, which became so acute that she determined to go to the cottage for something to relieve it; and, having set her class a task, she put the eldest pupil-teacher in

to the cottage over a broken-down place in the school-yard wall, through the cottage garden, and in by the kitchen door, which stood open. Fingo whined as she passed, but she took no notice, being intent on the matter of relieving her pain. Gaining her room, she took a bottle from a shelf, and began to apply the medicament to her gums with the tip of her finger. At the same moment she heard Aunt Joanna going through the kitchen to the back door, and was on the point of getting up and making her presence known, when the sound of Aunt Joanna's voice, speaking to Fingo, arrested her: "What are you sniveling about, you dirty cur?"

Mary could hardly believe her ears. Not only the coarse words astonished her, but the indescribably vicious way in which they were spoken, and the harsh voice, so utterly unlike the genial tones she knew so well. The girl sat on her bed as if she had been glued there, and heard the rest of the sentence:

"I've a good mind to settle your hash for you; only -" The threat remained unfinished. The speaker had turned back into the kitchen and was moving about. Presently she went in to pray, and shut the door. Mary was meditating a stealthy flight,- for, without examining her reasons, she was suddenly averse to letting Aunt Joanna know she had heard the words addressed to Fingo, when the door was opened again and Aunt Joanna came back into the kitchen. She seemed to be busy at the drawer of the dresser, and next came the sound of a knife being sharpened on the door-step. Afterward there was a dead silence for two or three minutes. Then, in a curiously fierce. whisper, some words: "No . . . no . . . I mustn't... No! I must wait till to-morrow." A loud rap on the front door broke the sinister spell. Aunt Joanna, dropping something on the kitchen table, left the kitchen, and Mary crept out and made her escape through the back door. As she passed through the kitchen she saw the carving-knife, with a fresh edge to it, lying upon the table.

When school was over at last, and the children gone, there was still much to be done, and it was dusk before Mary approached the house again, walking slowly, for she felt a strange reluctance to meet Aunt Joanna. But the house was empty. Aunt Joanna had not returned from her sick visit. Mary made the fire and put on the kettle for a cup of tea, then turned her attention to the matter of supper. Since Sarah Paton had first knocked on the door, no regular meal had been prepared in the cottage; and, after she had visited the larder, Mary's simple calculations told her that, if she

had eaten little during the two troubled days, Aunt Joanna had eaten absolutely nothing. Apparently, another cup of herbal tea had been brewed and drunk; for the empty cup, giving out a faint, peculiarly bitter odor, was on the table. Herbal tea, however, is a poor sustenance, and it behooved Mary to see about getting a good meal ready. As she sat peeling potatoes, her mind wrestled persistently with the problem of little Rosalie, and when she had finished she determined to go and pray. She had often prayed for things, as the young do, with fervor and faith, and her prayers had sometimes been answered in a wonderful way. The thought of going to God now, in the quiet house, appealed to her. She stepped softly into the little chapel room, and, kneeling down, not in her usual place but right before the altar, she prayed with all her heart that Rosalie might be found. When she finished, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, so ardently and pleadingly, like a child in trouble, had she called upon God. Immediately her heart was lighter, her courage higher. It was as if she had passed a burden from her own into other, abler hands.

As she rose she felt a brittle, crunching sensation under her boot, and, stooping, picked out something from under the red and brown leaves of the rug, and a thrill of amazement suddenly ran through her. The chapel was by now so dark that she could only dimly see what it was she had found, but not for a moment did she mistake the familiar feel of a thing she had possessed nearly all her life. It was her own little coral necklace-the necklace Rosalie was wearing when she disappeared.

No sound broke from the girl's lips, but a cry went up from her heart at this strange answer to her prayer. She realized that, if she had not gone to the altar steps to pray, her foot would never have found the necklace. Bewildered, amazed, frightened as she was, she suddenly felt strong and secure. God was at work!

As she opened the door that led back into the kitchen, lighted only by the flickering firelight, she collided heavily with some one, and her arm was gripped as by a hand of iron.

"What were you doing in there?" Aunt Joanna, breathing very heavily, as if she had been running, barked the question hoarsely at her. Mary stared a moment, a sort of terror creeping over her at that harsh, brutal voice heard twice the same day. Some swift instinct warned her to conceal what she felt.

"I have been praying, Aunt," she answered quietly. "Praying that our little Rosalie may be found."

Slowly the grip on her arm relaxed, and, as if nothing untoward had happened, she moved

She had spoken to hide something. A terrible inspiration had come to her that she must not share with Aunt Joanna the discovery she had just made; and, as she shook the saucepan with one hand, with the other she slipped the necklace into her pocket. Then she lighted the kitchen lamp, and got out the teapot. "I'm just going to make you a cup of tea, Auntie," she said cheerfully; "I expect you are dead beat."

The old woman had sunk into a chair by the table; but her eyes had a strange glare in them as she watched Mary, who bustled about, rattling the tea-things. At last the tea was made and poured out. "And now tell me, Auntie dear, is there any news yet?"

Aunt Joanna gave a sigh as if some tight band around her had suddenly been loosened and she had breathing-space once more.

"No, child" and it was almost her old genial voice. "The men have come back from the bush. But to-morrow they are going up the mountain. I've worked them up to that."

"I'm glad," said Mary thoughtfully. "For do you know, Auntie, I am beginning to believe, as the children do, that there really is a mollmeit up there, and that she is at the bottom of all the disappearances."

The blue eyes fastened themselves keenly on the girl's face; then, "I have always believed it myself," said Aunt Joanna solemnly.

The Irish stew looked appetizing enough in its dish; but the sight of it had a curious effect on Aunt Joanna. She looked at it almost ravenously, then turned away as if the sight sickened her.

"No," said Aunt Joanna slowly; "I shall say my prayers in my room. And I advise you,

to

my dear, to get to bed as soon as possible, for Jackson will be here for you at five in the morning. Have you got your things ready?” "Not yet," said Mary, and secretly repeated herself -"not yet!" She was dazed, bewildered, and terrified. Creeping, creeping terror of she knew not what was in her veins. But not for nothing had she prayed, and felt answering faith and courage poured into her heart! Definitely she knew that after that prayer and its answer she had no right to go yet until Rosalie was found.

Though she could not eat, she sat for some little time at the table, making sounds with her knife and fork Her idea was to prolong the evening as much as possible. She did not wish to go to bed until Aunt Joanna slept. She could hear her undressing, and presently murmuring to herself; later the iron bed creaked. But sleep was as yet far from that bed. Long before Mary had observed in Aunt Joanna an intense, almost foxlike acuteness that, in one less kind and genial, would have alarmed the girl. Now it did alarm her; for from the silent bedroom, through the closed door, she felt it directed upon her. Those unfortunate last words about evening prayers had aroused it!

At last, Mary rose and quietly cleared the table, went out to the yard and fed Fingo, made one or two little preparations for the morning, then bolted the back door and retired to her room. With her door carefully ajar, as she often left it, she then began to shake out and fold up her holiday things and pack them in a

Mary's own appetite had taken wings since that curious scene in the kitchen. Nevertheless she made a great pretense of hunger. Presently Aunt Joanna rose and stumbled toward her room, which was next to the dining-room. It was easy to see that she was dropping with fatigue. How could it be otherwise after two days of ceaseless activity during which she had eaten nothing? Her heavy, pallid cheeks hung in haggard rolls about her jaws, and, with the glare gone out of them, her eyes resembled two large blue beads in a fat doll's face.

"I'll go to bed, Mary," she said heavily. must get rest.”

"I

"Yes, do, Auntie. No evening prayers tonight, I suppose?"

Like a flash, energy came back into the old

fectly natural, and to make no sound more or less than she would on any ordinary night; for she was still aware of that acute attention piercing through the very walls about her. At last she washed her face, brushed and plaited her hair, and got into bed. But under her night-dress she was fully dressed.

There in the darkness she lay thinking, thinking, and while she thought she practised breathing regularly and evenly, as she had often done when a child. What was the meaning of it all? — the strange words in the kitchen . . . the abuse flung at the dog . . . the screeching knife . . . the grip on her arm . . . the watching eyes the coral necklace in the little chapel? Mary had no clear idea; only, when she tried to piece the strange puzzle together, she was afraid with a deadly fear that froze the blood

It seemed as if years instead of hours passed before that happened which she had known must happen. Very gently, Aunt Joanna's door opened, and feet came padding softly to the kitchen. Beside Mary's door they paused it was for this moment Mary had practised her regular breathing, and the practice stood her in good stead. After some frightful moments the longest, it seemed to Mary, she had ever lived through the stealthy feet crossed the kitchen, and the chapel door was opened. It was then that Mary sat up in bed, straining her ear-drums until she thought they would crack. But the only sound that reached her was a little soft, creaking sound. A moment later she was lying flat again, breathing regularly; for the feet were returning, to pause by her door, and the light of a candle flickered in. At last, the gentle opening and shutting of another door, and the creak of the iron bed under a heavy body, told that Aunt Joanna had finished her midnight prowlings. It was Mary's turn to get up.

For a full hour she stood listening in the darkness, and in the end she heard the stertorous breathing of a stout, tired woman fallen heavily asleep. This time it was Mary who stole, candle in hand, to the chapel. Drops of cold sweat stood on her forehead and round her mouth as, without a sound, she opened the door of that silent room to seek there that which Aunt Joanna had hidden and feared for another to find. Whatever and wherever it was, there was no time to lose. At any moment the old woman might wake. Fearfully the girl stole to the altar, and, lifting the heavy red cloth, stared beneath. Nothing!

The only other possible place was the oak chest. With faltering hands she lifted the lid (which gave a little creak) and looked in, and at what she saw the candle all but fell from her hands. White and still upon the folded altar cloths lay the body of little Rosalie. Mary turned faint and sick; but the Power that had sustained her throughout the terrible night did not fail her in that moment. She put out her hand to touch the child, and at the same moment a faint, bitter odor of herbs came to her, and she recognized it as the same she had smelled in the cup in the kitchen. There was a brown stain on the child's lips, and drops of liquid on her dress.

Like a flash Mary realized the truth, and, touching the little hands, found them still warm. The child was not dead, but under the influence of a sleeping herb. Plenty of air came through the holes and cracks of the old chest. She was being kept asleep until ... until what?

"No, no, I mustn't must wait till to-morrow!"

I mustn't! . . . I

Until to-morrow when Mary would be gone. Was that it? Then, in the silent house, what?

Ah, what terrible thoughts! They almost unnerved Mary. But she found strength to catch up the child's still form, and, turning, fled from the accursed place. The lid of the chest fell with a loud bang, and as she gained the back door and fumbled with the latch she heard Aunt Joanna leap like a tiger from her lair.

Ah, what a race was that through the black night! Over garden beds to the gate mercifully open, and down the long, lonely road. Far, far in front lay the native village, and a single point of light glimmering out from a sick woman's hut; and behind was a wild beast balked of its prey, snarling and panting.

Mary ran until a glaze came over her eyes and the blood burst from her nostrils. The rush of the air woke the child in her arms to weak but piercing crying, and only then did the padding, shambling feet behind begin to falter and fall back. But Mary ran staggering on toward the light burning in Sarah Paton's hut, and only stopped to fall fainting on the door-step.

Within half an hour the tale was told, and men, with lanterns in their hands and black fury in their hearts, were out on the road. But they found no one. Both the school and the cottage were empty.

The mollmeit had fled to the mountain at last.

For

Sewn into the mattress of Aunt Joanna's bed were discovered the emigration papers of Janet Fink; and later, from under the bed of herbs in the garden, aided and guided by good dog Fingo, men dug out the skulls and bones of four little children. Then, raging, they burned the cottage and school of the Friend for Little Children, and, with brands from the fire, set alight the thick bush of the mountain. four days the flames roared and crackled, sending down great gusts of heat to the town below, and by night lighting up the veldt for miles. The rock-rabbits and mountain buck came scudding down to the safety of the bush, but the men deployed in a wide circle round the base of the berg never raised a gun to them, so intent were they on their grim vigil:

At length the flames died down, and Thaba Inkosisan, blackened and bare, with no leaf or flower or branch, nor any living thing left upon it, gloomed silent above the town.