abit, lest you take cold."

"Oh, Betty darling," whispered the child, "how will you ever gain the
garret stairs when Reuben is watching? He will be sure to think it
strange; can I not go for you?"

"No, never," said Betty tenderly. "I will slip by Reuben, and you must
not fret. Sit here on my knee and go fast asleep until I wake you."

Moppet nestled her little head down obediently on Betty's shoulder; but
try hard though she did to keep her eyes wide open, sleep at last
overcame her,--sleep so profound after all this excitement that Betty
was able to lay her softly upon her bed without awaking, and for the
remainder of those long hours Betty kept her vigil alone. It was nervous
work: for determined though she was to release Yorke, Betty possessed a
most sensitive and tender conscience, and love for her country and her
people was as the air she breathed. It proved the tenacity of her
purpose and the strength of her will that, notwithstanding her many
misgivings, when she heard the clock sound the quarter she rose from her
low seat by the window, where she had been gazing out into the night,
and whispered softly to Moppet that it was time to wake. The child
sprang up, alert and quick as Betty herself, and listened to her
sister's last warning instructions to have no fear, but wait quietly for
her return, and when the clock struck the hour to whisper through the
hole in the chimney to Yorke that she had gone.

Very softly, her slippers held tightly in her hand, Betty pulled up the
latch of the bedroom door and stepped into the almost dark hall. The
night lamp had partly died out, but there was still enough of its
flickering light to permit her, when her eyes grew accustomed to it, to
see the dim outline of Reuben's figure sitting on a stool at the door of
the north chamber. In order to reach the garret from this part of the
house she must go directly down the hall to where it parted at the L,
where the stairs reaching the garret were shut off by a door, on the
other aide of which was a square landing, where you could turn down and
descend directly from the garret to the buttery. Once past Reuben, she
would feel comparatively safe, for although Oliver's room was opposite
he was too weary to be wakeful. It took scarcely a minute to creep
toward Reuben, and Betty drew a quick breath of relief when she
perceived that the farmer-bred lad, unaccustomed to night watches, and
feeling that his prisoner was secure behind the bol