er movement with its sight,
and the hat was again taken off, and waved violently.

Barbara Hare turned sick with utter terror. _She_ must fathom it; she
must see who, and what it was; for the servants she dared not call, and
those movements were imperative, and might not be disregarded. But
she possessed more innate courage than falls to the lot of some young
ladies.

"Mamma," she said, returning to the parlor and catching up her shawl,
while striving to speak without emotion. "I shall just walk down the
path and see if papa is coming."

Mrs. Hare did not reply. She was musing upon other things, in that
quiescent happy mood, which a small portion of spirits will impart to
one weak in body; and Barbara softly closed the door, and stole out
again to the portico. She stood a moment to rally her courage, and again
the hat was waved impatiently.

Barbara Hare commenced her walk towards it in dread unutterable, an
undefined sense of evil filling her sinking heart; mingling with which,
came, with a rush of terror, a fear of that other undefinable evil--the
evil Mrs. Hare had declared was foreboded by her dream.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOONLIGHT INTERVIEW.

Cold and still looked the old house in the moonbeams. Never was the moon
brighter; it lighted the far-stretching garden, it illuminated even the
weathercock aloft, it shone upon the portico, and upon one who appeared
in it. Stealing to the portico from the house had come Barbara Hare, her
eyes strained in dread affright on the grove of trees at the foot of the
garden. What was it that had stepped out of that groove of trees, and
mysteriously beckoned to her as she stood at the window, turning her
heart to sickness as she gazed? Was it a human being, one to bring
more evil to the house, where so much evil had already fallen? Was it a
supernatural visitant, or was it but a delusion of her own eyesight? Not
the latter, certainly, for the figure was now emerging again, motioning
to her as before; and with a white face and shaking limbs, Barbara
clutched her shawl around her and went down that path in the moonlight.
The beckoning form retreated within the dark recess as she neared it,
and Barbara halted.

"Who and what are you?" she asked, under her breath. "What do you want?"

"Barbara," was the whispered, eager answer, "don't you recognize me?"

Too surely she did--the voice at any rate--and a cry escaped her,
telling more of sorrow than of joy, though betraying both.