y rushed, as nurse led little Anne up the broad
shallow steps of the dark oak staircase, but Lucy stood laughing
with exultation in the intended vengeance, as her brother took down
her father's hunting-whip.

"He must be wellnigh a fiend to play such wicked pranks under the
very Minster!" she said.

"And a rascal of a Whig, and that's worse," added Charles; "but I'll
have it out of him!"

"Take care, Charley; if you offend him, and he does really belong to
those--those creatures"--Lucy lowered her voice--"who knows what
they might do to you?"

Charles laughed long and loud. "I'll take care of that," he said,
swinging out at the door. "Elf or no elf, he shall learn what it is
to play off his tricks on _my_ sister and my little sweetheart."

Lucy betook herself to the nursery, where Anne was being comforted,
her bleeding lip washed with essence, and repaired with a pinch of
beaver from a hat, and her other bruises healed with lily leaves
steeped in strong waters.

"Charley is gone to serve him out!" announced Lucy as the sovereign
remedy.

"Oh, but perhaps he did not mean it," Anne tried to say.

"Mean it? Small question of that, the cankered young slip! Nurse,
do you think those he belongs to can do Charley any harm if he
angers them?"

"I cannot say, missie. Only 'tis well we be not at home, or there
might be elf knots in the horses' manes to-night. I doubt me
whether _that sort_ can do much hurt here, seeing as 'tis holy
ground."

"But is he really a changeling? I thought there were no such things
as--"

"Hist, hist, Missie Anne!" cried the dame; "'tis not good to name
them."

"Oh, but we are on the Minster ground, nurse," said Lucy, trembling
a little however, looking over her shoulder, and coming closer to
the old servant.

"Why do they think so?" asked Anne. "Is it because he is so ugly
and mischievous and rude? Not like boys in London."

"Prithee, nurse, tell her the tale," entreated Lucy, who had made
large eyes over it many a time before.

"Ay, and who should tell you all about it save me, who had it all
from Goody Madge Bulpett, as saw it all!"

"Goody Madge! It was she that came when poor little Kitty was born
and died," suggested Lucy, as Anne, laying her aching head upon
nurse's knees, prepared to listen to the story.

"Well, deary darlings, you see poor Madam Oakshott never had her
health since the Great Fire in London, when she was biding with her
kinsfolk to be near Majo