The grand old tree is sighing out a farewell. The sunlight is casting fantastic shadows where her foot, but a moment since, rested. The leaves glisten and whisper strange things. The golden buttercups laugh up in the sun's face, as if there were no drama of loving and hating, sin and atonement, daily enacted on their green, motherly bosom. And Madeline Payne has put her childhood behind her, and turned her face to the darkness beyond. CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF A CRIME. Nurse Hagar was displeased. She plied her knitting-needles fiercely, and seemed to rejoice in their sharp clicking. She rocked furiously backwards and forwards, and sharply admonished the cat to "take himself away," or she "would certainly rock on his tail." She "wanted to do something to somebody, she did!" She looked across the fields in the direction of Oakley, and dropping her knitting and bringing her chair to a tranquil state, soliloquized: "It's always the way with young folks; they don't never remember that old uns have feelings. They run away after a new face, and if it's a young one and a handsome one, they turn everybody out of their thoughts; everybody else. Not that I think that city fellow's a handsome chap; by no means," she grumbled; "but Maidie does; that's certain sure. And she won't let me say a word about him--oh, no; I'm a poor old woman, and my advice is not wanted!" Hagar resumed her knitting and her rocking with fresh vigor. But her face relaxed a measure of its grimness as, looking up, her eye rested on a dainty nosegay, tossed in at the window only that morning, by this same neglectful young girl. "She don't mean to forget me, to be sure," she resumed. "She is always kind and gentle to her old nurse. She is lonesome, of course, and should have young company, like other girls, but--" here the needles slacked again--"drat that city chap! I wish he had stayed away from Bellair." "Goodness, auntie, what a face! I am almost afraid to come in." Madeline laughed, despite her anxiety, as Aunt Hagar permitted her opinion of the "city feller" to manifest itself in every feature. "Get that awfully defiant look out of your countenance, auntie," continued Madeline; "for I'm coming in to have a long talk with you, and I must not be frightened in the beginning." The lovely face disappeared from the open window, and in a moment reappeared in the doorway. To permit herself to be propitiated in a moment, however, was not in the nature of Dame Hagar.