[lis Lillle Girl

[ orved Oul.

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Dy PLEvDELL NORTIH.

Nuthor of Vowsicir e

e i 11s heart of an Inghsh valley a streteh ol green slope, where oaks and clms had grown through slow centuries 1mto crandeur 3 and through the elds, Tike an arrow of silver, the clear waters of the Tean.

Down by its banks a young girl, wanderimg alone ; singing as she went, her white gown shining in the sunlight.

What was her song, T know not. Possibly 1t was the effort ol a very young and sympathetic nature, seeking some faint expression for o sense of joy and beauty instinctively felt.

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TN _—T — P

Curer and

other Tales.

she thought she was alone 5 but presently above the high reeds she saw the head and shoulders of a solitary angler. "Then she stopped singing and went on cautiously.

This voung lady’s chaperon was sitting up among the s sketehing. She had wamed

her charge not to wander too far away, ~and ol the possibility of encountering strangers ;5 some of the “all sorts of people” tourists andwanderers- who were sard i summer to o delight in Lishing the waters of the Tean,

There was that, however, m the shape of the head and shoulders, scen outhned agamst the sky, which at- tracted Miss Rawdon, and she did not turn back as she nnght have done. was very voung, and the world pro- mised to be a tary tale, with alwavs an tnpending transformation seene of entrancing possibilitics. Only three weeks ago she had loft school ; the school-house at Norwood and the care of the two kindly Misses Fake, its mistresses, bounded all the horizon of her childish recollection. Now she was longimg to come nto touch with this world of wonders, the smallest incdent of which promisced an adventure.

When she reached a willow, half a licld s length from the angler, she stopped. The trunk partly concealed her, and she could watch proceedings comfortably.

Nothing might have come of it. She might have returned to Mrs. Montresor sit- ting under the elms with no distinet mercase of impression, beyond the outline of a hat and a pair of shoulders ; but swish through the ong grass came something straight her direction,

[Cwas an Irish temier, as keenly excusive as hersell. He had caught sight of the winte cleam behind the willow trunk, and; forget- ful of his master and his master’s interests, of all & dog’s duty, he started to investigate 1ts meaning,

• Back, Rollo--back, you beast 17

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