on the way;
and say yer prayers as ye gaa; and let none but good thoughts come
nigh ye; and put nayer foot autside the door-steyan again till ye gaa
to be christened; and get that done a Sunda' next."

And with this charge, given with grizzly earnestness, she saw her over
the stile, and stood upon it watching her retreat, until the trees
quite hid her and her path from view.

The sky grew cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as
the girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke's view of the case, walked
homeward by the lonely path among the trees.

A black cat, which had walked close by her--for these creatures
sometimes take a ramble in search of their prey among the woods and
thickets--crept from under the hollow of an oak, and was again with
her. It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness
deepened, and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her
affrighted vision as the thunder came booming along the heights from
the Willarden-road.

She tried to drive it away; but it growled and hissed awfully, and set
up its back as if it would spring at her, and finally it skipped up
into a tree, where they grew thickest at each side of her path, and
accompanied her, high over head, hopping from bough to bough as if
meditating a pounce upon her shoulders. Her fancy being full of
strange thoughts, she was frightened, and she fancied that it was
haunting her steps, and destined to undergo some hideous
transformation, the moment she ceased to guard her path with prayers.

She was frightened for a while after she got home. The dark looks of
Mother Carke were always before her eyes, and a secret dread prevented
her passing the threshold of her home again that night.

Next day it was different. She had got rid of the awe with which
Mother Carke had inspired her. She could not get the tall
dark-featured lord, in the black velvet dress, out of her head. He had
"taken her fancy"; she was growing to love him. She could think of
nothing else.

Bessie Hennock, a neighbour's daughter, came to see her that day, and
proposed a walk toward the ruins of Hawarth Castle, to gather
"blaebirries." So off the two girls went together.

In the thicket, along the slopes near the ivied walls of Hawarth
Castle, the companions began to fill their baskets. Hours passed. The
sun was sinking near the west, and Laura Silver Bell had not come
home.

Over the hatch of the farm-house door the maids leant ever and anon