id the girl, earnestly; "and, oh! he will repent
that ever he took his own way through this forest."

"How can that be? What cause have you to say so?"

"I do not know," murmured the damsel, in woeful perplexity; "but--but,
sometimes, that road is dangerous."

"Sometimes all roads are so," said Edith, her patience failing, when she
found Telie could give no better reason for her opposition. "Let us
continue: my kinsman is waiting us, and we must lose no more time by
delay."

With these words, she again trotted forward, and Telie, after hesitating
a moment, thought fit to follow.

But now the animation that had, a few moments before, beamed forth in
every look and gesture of the maiden, gave place to dejection of spirits,
and even, as Edith thought, to alarm. She seemed as anxious now to linger
in the rear as she had been before to preserve a bold position in front.
Her eyes wandered timorously from brake to tree, as if in fear lest each
should conceal a lurking enemy; and often, as Edith looked back, she was
struck with the singularly mournful and distressed expression of her
countenance.

CHAPTER VIII.

These symptoms of anxiety and alarm affected Edith's own spirits; they
did more,--they shook her faith in the justice of her kinsman's
conclusions. His arguments in relation to the road were, indeed,
unanswerable, and Telie had offered none to weaken them. Yet why should
she betray such distress, if they were upon the right one? and why, in
fact, should she not be supposed to know both the right and the wrong,
since she had, as she said, so frequently travelled both?

These questions Edith could not refrain asking of Roland, who professed
himself unable to answer them, unless by supposing the girl had become
confused, as he thought was not improbable, or had, in reality, been so
long absent from the forest as to have forgotten its paths altogether:
which was likely enough, as she seemed a very simple-minded,
inexperienced creature. "But why need we," he said, "trouble ourselves
to find reasons for the poor girl's opposition? Here are the tracks of
our friends, broader and deeper than ever: here they wind down into the
hollow; and there, you may see where they have floundered through that
vile pool, that is still turbid, where they crossed it. A horrible
quagmire! But courage, my fair cousin: it is only such difficulties as
these which the road can lead us into."

Such were the expressions with which t