branch which flowed close by the barn, the willows leaning to it, the ferns laving in it. The place was incredibly solitary and mournful with the persistent spectacle of the deserted home, suggestive of collapsed energies, of the defeated scheme of some simple humanity. A faint bleat rose suddenly. Alethea turned quickly. Amongst a patch of briers she caught a glimpse of something white; another glance,—it was the ewe, quietly nibbling the grass. Alethea had no intention of moving softly, but her skirts brushing through the weeds made hardly a sound. Her light, sure step scarcely stirred a leaf. The ewe saw her presently, and paused in feeding. She had been making the best of her woes, remaining near her lamb, which had fallen into a sink-hole, sustained by the earth, gravel and banks of leaves held in the mouth of the cavity. Its leg was broken, and thus, although the sheep could venture to it, the lamb could not follow to the vantage-ground above. Seeing that succor was at hand, the sheep lost all patience and calmness, and ran about Alethea in a distracting fashion, bleating, till the lamb, roused to a renewed sense of its calamities, bleated piteously too. As it lay down in the cavity upon the dead leaves, it had a strangely important look upon its face, appreciating how much stir it was making in the world for one of its size. Alethea noticed this, albeit she was too self-absorbed at the moment. These treacherous hopper-shaped sink-holes are of indefinite depth, and are often the mouths of caves. To reach the lamb she must needs venture half across the cavity. She stepped cautiously down the debris, holding fast the while to the branches of an elder-bush growing on its verge. She felt the earth sinking beneath her feet. The sheep, which had jumped in too, sprang hastily out. Alethea had a dizzying realization of insecurity. She caught the lamb up in one arm, then stepped upon the sinking mass and struggled up the side of the aperture, as with a great gulp the leaves and earth were swallowed into the cavity. She looked down with that sickening sense of a sheer escape, still holding the lamb in one arm; the other hand readjusted the heavy masses of her golden hair, and the saffron kerchief about the neck of her brown dress. The sheep, one anxiety removed, was the prey of another, and pressed close to Alethea, with outstretched head and all the fears of kidnapping in her pleading eyes. Alethea waited for a moment to rest. Then as she glanced over her shoulder her heart seemed to stand still, her brain reeled, and but for her acute consciousness she would have thought she must be dreaming.