better stay with Caroline--arrangements
which they could not but connect with a glimpse of martial scarlet they
had observed on a distant moor earlier in the day, and the passage, by a
quiet route, of six cavalry soldiers.

So the girls sat up that night and watched, until, close upon midnight,
they heard the tramp of hundreds of marching feet. The mob halted by the
rectory for a muttered consultation, and then moved cautiously along
towards the Hollow's Mill.

In vain did the two watchers try to cross to the mill by fenced fields
and give the alarm. When they reached a point from which they could
overlook the mill, the attack had already begun, and the yard-gates were
being forced. A volley of stones smashed every window, but the mill
remained mute as a mausoleum.

"He cannot be alone," whispered Caroline.

"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed,"
responded Shirley.

Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this
signal? It seemed so. The inert mill woke, and a volley of musketry
pealed sharp through the Hollow. It was difficult in the darkness to
distinguish what was going on now. The mill yard was full of
battle-movement; there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting,
and then the rioters, who had never dreamed of encountering an organised
defence, fell back defeated, but leaving the premises a blot of
desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn.

Caroline Helstone now fell into a state of depression and physical
weakness which she tried in vain to combat.

"It is scarcely living to measure time as I do at the rectory," she
confessed one day to Mrs. Pryor, who had become her instructress and
friend. "The hours pass, and I get over them somehow, but I do not live
I endure existence, but I barely enjoy it. I want to go away from this
place and forget it."

"You know I am at present residing with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of
companion," Mrs. Pryor replied. "Should she marry, and that she will
marry ere long many circumstances induce me to conclude, I shall cease
to be necessary to her. I possess a small independency, arising partly
from my own savings and partly from a legacy. Whenever I leave Fieldhead
I shall take a house of my own. I have no relations to invite to close
intimacy. To you, my dear, I need not say I am attached. With you I am
happier than I have been with any living thing. You will come to me
then, Caroline?"

"Indeed,