"I cannot tell you how it all happened. Barton met me, and would come along with me, and then he said strange things to me; and I answered him back, and quarrelled with him, and--" "What could he have said to you? Tell me all." Julia began and told with great minuteness, and with much feeling, her whole adventure. She explained that she really did not want Bart to come with her, for that it would displease her father; and that when he did, she thought he ought to know that he was not at liberty to be her escort or come to the house, and so she told him. She could not tell why she answered him just as she did, but she was surprised, and not quite herself, and she might have said it differently, and need not have said so much, and he certainly must know that she did not mean it all. Surely it was most his fault; if he really had such feelings, why should he tell her, and tell her as he did? It was dreadful, and she would never be happy again; and she laid her head in her mother's lap, in her great anguish. When her burst of grief had subsided, and she was calm, her mother asked several questions, and learned all that was said, and was much excited at Julia's account of the encounter with the beast and Barton's intrepidity. She seemed to feel that they had both escaped a great danger, through his courage. "My dear child," she said, "I don't know what to think of these strange and trying events, mixed up as they are. There is one very, very unfortunate thing about it." "That I met Barton? Oh, mother!" "No, no; not that. It was unfortunate that you came the way you did, or unfortunate that you went, perhaps; but it is not that. It was most providential that Barton was with you, but so unfortunate that he said to you what he did." "Is it a misfortune to be loved, mother?" "Let us not talk of this to-night, my darling," stooping and kissing her still pale cheek. "God only knows of these things. It may not be a misfortune, but it may bring unhappiness, dear, to somebody." "Perhaps, mother, if he had not had such feelings he would not have come with me." "My child! my child! don't say what might have happened. I am glad and grateful--so grateful that he was with you--that he was generous enough to come, after what you said to him; but now, how can we express our gratitude to him?" "Oh, mamma! I am sure it is no matter. He won't care now what we think." "You are too much agitated, my daughter, to-night; let us not talk it over now. But what became of Barton? did he come in?" "No, I left him at the back gate, without a word, only waiting for me to run in. Of course he went back to the woods and wild beasts. What other place was there for him?" "Don't, don't, Julia! don't say such words. Harm will not come to him." "I know it won't," said the young girl; "for when the whole world turns against a brave, true heart, God watches over it with the more care."