Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself mechanically into her hair. No one was about, and the house was profoundly still, save for the voices coming up from the room below in a subdued and not unpleasant murmur, with now and then the child's shrill babble breaking in through the deeper tones like occasional notes in a sonata. Out of doors were all the pleasant sights and sounds of the peaceful evening coming on after the labors of the busy day. The birds were calling to each other in the woods before nesting for the night; the homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; the village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they came off the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun dyed the autumn leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a richer russet. It was all so peaceful, all so happy, in this soft mild evening of the late September--all seemed so full of promise, so eloquent of future joy, to those who had just begun their new career. But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment--felt nothing of its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was half-unconsciously designing. She saw only, at first dimly, then distinctly, that here were the means by which mamma's enemy might be punished and swept from mamma's place, and that if she failed her opportunity now she would be a traitor and a coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma. No, she would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the saints themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner it was done the better for mamma. She uncorked the bottle of cherry-water, good for that troublesome heart of poor madame's. All that Alick had told her of the action of poisons came back upon her as clearly as her mother's words, her mother's voice. This cherry-water, too, had the smell of bitter almonds, and was own sister to that in the little phial in her other hand. Now she understood it all--why she had been taken to Steel's Corner, why Alick had taught her about poisons, and why her mamma had told her to steal that bottle. She looked at it with its eloquent paper marked "Poison" wound about it spirally like a snake, uncorked it and emptied half into the cherry-water. "Two drops are enough, and there are more than two there," she said to herself. "Mamma must be safe now." And with this she left the room and went into her own to watch and wait.