Hagar mumbled something, not exactly intended to be a speech but simply a small growl, illustrative of her mood. Then, as if her dignity had been sufficiently asserted, she relaxed her grimness, and looking kindly down upon the girl, and pushing her toward the big chair, said: "But law! child, you look fagged out. Sit down, sit down, and don't mind an old woman's grumbling." "Did I ever?" laughed the girl, sinking into the big chair as if indeed willing to rest. "But I can't sit here long, nursie; my day's work, or rather my night's work, is not yet finished." "Not yet? Oh, Madeline, my little nursling, give up these wild plans and plots; they will bring you no good." "Won't they?" nodding significantly. "I think they will do me good, and you, too, Nurse Hagar; and before very long, too. Why, bless you, these precious plotters won't wait for me to bring them into my net; they are tumbling in headlong--all of them. They are helping me, with all their might, to bring about their own downfall. Hagar," and the girl leaned suddenly forward and looked closely into the old woman's face, "I want you to come back to Oakley." Hagar started back as if struck by a knife. She was about to open her lips and set free a torrent of indignant protest, when the girl lifted her hand, interrupting her in the old characteristic way. "Wait until I explain, auntie. I want you to go to Oakley to-morrow, at the hour when Mr. John Arthur is always supposed to be taking his after-dinner nap. Just after dinner, I want you to see Madame Cora; manage it in your own way, but see her you must." "I won't!" broke in the old woman. "You will," said the girl, quietly, "when I have told you why." Drawing her chair close to that occupied by her companion, she resumed in a low voice: "Yesterday Miss Arthur sent me to the village to purchase some trifling articles for the adornment of her precious person. Returning through the woods, I came upon Mr. Davlin and his 'sister,' conversing very earnestly, just at the lower end of the terrace. I arrived at the hedgerow stile just in time to hear madame say, very emphatically, that something must be done immediately. They were going down the terrace steps when I passed them, pretending to be in a great hurry. As soon as their backs were toward me, I turned quickly, and without noise crossed the stile, followed them on the opposite side of the hedge, and listened." Here the speaker paused and looked up, but her auditor was gazing moodily into the fire, and never stirred nor spoke. "Madame was saying," resumed the narrator, "that she was heartily weary of the part she was playing; that its monotony sickened her; that they had secured the victims, and fate had been kind enough to remove the only stumbling block in their path, save the old man himself; that she considered my very sensible demise a direct answer to her pious prayers." The old woman shuddered and cast a look of horror upon the speaker.