ad been fitted in a tempest of
petticoats and a whirlwind of old shawls, who presented herself at the
door.

But there was a very warm heart somewhere in that queer-looking bundle of
clothes, and it was not one of those that can throb or break in silence.
When she saw the long covered wagon, and the grave face of the old
master, she thought it was all over with the poor girl she loved, and
that this was the undertaker's wagon bringing back only what had once
been Myrtle Hazard. She screamed aloud,--so wildly that Myrtle lifted
her head from the pillow against which she had rested it, and started
forward.

The Irishwoman looked at her for a moment to assure herself that it was
the girl she loved, and not her ghost. Then it all came over her,--she
had been stolen by thieves, who had carried her off by night, and been
rescued by the brave old man who had brought her back. What crying and
kisses and prayers and blessings were poured forth, in a confusion of
which her bodily costume was a fitting type, those who know the
vocabulary and the enthusiasm of her eloquent race may imagine better
than we could describe it.

The welcome of the two other women was far less demonstrative. There
were awful questions to be answered before the kind of reception she was
to have could be settled. What they were, it is needless to suggest; but
while Miss Silence was weeping, first with joy that her "responsibility"
was removed, then with a fair share of pity and kindness, and other
lukewarm emotions,--while Miss Badlam waited for an explanation before
giving way to her feelings,--Mr. Gridley put the essential facts before
them in a few words. She had gone down the river some miles in her boat,
which was upset by a rush of the current, and she had come very near
being drowned. She was got out, however, by a person living near by, and
cared for by some kind women in a house near the river, where he had been
fortunate enough to discover her.--Who cut her hair off? Perhaps those
good people,--she had been out of her head. She was alive and unharmed,
at any rate, wanting only a few days' rest. They might be very thankful
to get her back, and leave her to tell the rest of her story when she had
got her strength and memory, for she was not quite herself yet, and might
not be for some days.

And so there she was at last laid in her own bed, listening again to the
ripple of the waters beneath her, Miss Silence sitting on one side
look