three. Next he saw a blonde babyish-looking fairy, likewise blue-eyed, with her long golden hair falling about her shoulders in cascades-the most beautiful creature he had ever looked on, but quite indescribable, for the simple reason that there was nothing to describe about her, except a general beauty, which was not here, nor there, but everywhere. And, lastly, this group of three was made up by a pale and sicklylooking boy, who, pale and unhealthy as he looked, was evidently, even to James's untrained eyes, the brother of the strong red-faced girl he had noticed first.

It was not difficult for James to connect the three voices he had heard with the three children he saw before him. The golden-haired fairy was the girl who had done the principal part of the talking. The stout strong girl, she of the determined voice, was the girl who had made objections to the original programme of their play, and the pale-faced boy was the owner of the voice he had liked so much, the boy who had said that the dogs must represent bears.

James, for the first time in his life, had the pleasure of throwing the whole of a company (very limited

on this occasion) into confusion. So far from acting Esquimaux, and being traded with, he turned his battered face on them, and said in good enough English

"I know what you are aiming at. But I can't be an Esquimaux to-night. I know all about the Great Fish River, and the pemmican, and the Magnetic Pole is in Boothia Felix. I'd willingly play with you. I'd be a bear, and come growling round your hut smelling the seal blubber; or I'd be the great brown jaguar, bigger than the biggest Bengal tiger, and I'd lie under the palm-tree, and work my claws, and you should be Humboldt, picking of cowslips and not noticing me: or I'd be Villeneuve, or Gravina, or Soult, or any of that lot short of Buonaparte, and you should be Lord Nelson or Lord Hill. But I can't play to-night. I want to be took home to mother and put to bed."

"My dear souls," said Anne, the bright-haired fairy, to the other two, "this boy is no Esquimaux. He is one of the lost expedition."

"Don't be silly, Anne," said Dora, the tall strong

girl. The boy has been badly beaten by the poachers, and should be looked after."

"Why don't you go and look after him?" demanded Anne.

"Because," said Dora, "I am afraid of those dogs which are all round him. Ah! you need not turn up your nose, for you are a regular coward. You are afraid of thunder and lightning; you are afraid of frogs; you are afraid of old Mrs. Halfacre, because the Princess says she is a witch; you are afraid of walking through stinging nettles; and you cry when you go through a lock. I am afraid of those dogs, and so is Reggy. I can't think why grandpa keeps such a lot of brutes about the place."

"You have no business to wonder. Grandpa does as he chooses. And I am not afraid of frogs; I am only afraid of toads, which spit venom at you. You are such a cockney, you don't know a toad from a frog. This is a much better place than Lancaster Square."

"That's true enough," said Dora; "but that will never stop me speaking my mind, not to grandpa himself, leave alone you. If you are really not afraid of

those dogs, make yourself useful.

Get them away

from the boy, and let me get at him."

66

"But

I am not afraid of the dogs," said Anne. why don't you call the boy out from amongst them if you want him?"

This was an excellent suggestion, and Dora had not thought of that solution so soon as the quicker-witted Anne. She would have acted on Anne's advice doubtless, had not the low growl of a voice they knew well silenced all the children, and made them retire into a corner, preparatory to skulking off to the free regions above stairs as soon as they were sufficiently unobserved, while James was still left standing before the fire among the dogs. Three faces came out of the darkness into the light of the fire, and two candlesticks on the mantelpiece, towards him; the faces of three men.

The first that of the gigantic gentleman who had carried him home that night,-a handsome face with a black moustache on it, and very bold wild dark eyes; not a remarkable face in any way, if you except its commonplace beauty. The mouth belonging to that face I never saw, and it is very difficult to guess at a mouth under a moustache; but the reckless ease of

every pose the man made would tell one almost as much of the man's character as his mouth. The next face the boy saw was very different, and the moment he looked on it he knew that he was looking on the "Dark Squire" at a nearer distance than he ever looked before.

He had seen the Squire before, often and often; but he had never dared to look at Dark Silcote any more than he had dared to look at the lightning which shattered the ash-tree close to him, and killed two of the sheep he was minding, sheep not so much frightened as their shepherd; or than he would have dared to look at any of the numerous ghosts with which rustic imagination had peopled the great beech forest of Boisey. Lightning, ghosts, and the Dark Squire were the sort of things he let go by with a touch of the cap, as necessary evils; right of course because they were there, but which, in sceptical moments, he wished were anywhere else. He now saw the Dark Squire close to him, in the most careless manner, and looked at him closely-for the dull stupid aching left by the poacher's fist made him careless about fifty dark squires. Let us see the Squire with him.