entary hope.

Poor Mrs. Sturk! She raised the window a few inches, that she might the
better hear the first distant ring of his coming on the road. She forgot
he had not his horse that night, and was but a pedestrian. But somehow
the night-breeze through the aperture made a wolfish howling and
sobbing, that sounded faint and far away, and had a hateful character of
mingled despair and banter in it.

She said every now and then aloud, to reassure herself--'What a noise
the wind makes to be sure!' and after a while she opened the window
wider. But her candle flared, and the flame tossed wildly about, and the
perplexed lady feared it might go out absolutely. So she shut down the
window altogether; for she could not bear the ill-omened baying any
longer.

So it grew to be past two o'clock, and she was afraid that Barney would
be very angry with her for sitting up, should he return.

She went to bed, therefore, where she lay only more
feverish--conjecturing, and painting frightful pictures, till she heard
the crow of the early village cock, and the caw of the jackdaw wheeling
close to the eaves as he took wing in the gray of the morning to show
her that the business of a new day had commenced; and yet Barney had not
returned.

Not long after seven o'clock, Dr. Toole, with Juno, Caesar, Dido, and
Sneak at his heels, paid his half-friendly, half-professional visit at
the Mills.

Poor little Mrs. Nutter was much better--quiet for her was everything,
packed up, of course, with a little physic; and having comforted her,
as well as he was able, he had a talk with Moggy in the hall, and all
about Nutter's disappearance, and how Mrs. Macan saw him standing by the
river's brink, and that was the last anyone near the house had seen of
him; and a thought flashed upon Toole, and he was very near coming out
with it, but checked himself, and only said--

'What hat had he on?'

So she told him.

'And was his name writ in it, or how was it marked?'

'Two big letters--a C and an N.'

'I see; and do you remember any other mark you'd know it by?'

'Well, yes; I stitched the lining only last month, with red silk, and
that's how I remember the letters.'

'I know; and are you sure it was that hat he had on?'

'Certain sure--why, there's all the rest;' and she conned them over, as
they hung on their pegs on the rack before them.

'Now, don't let the mistress be downhearted--keep her up, Moggy, do you
mind. I told her the master