ings to
you; eh, auntie?"

[Illustration: "Celine looked cautiously around her."--page 159.]

Hagar mumbled something, not exactly intended to be a speech but
simply a small growl, illustrative of her mood. Then, as if her
dignity had been sufficiently asserted, she relaxed her grimness,
and looking kindly down upon the girl, and pushing her toward the big
chair, said:

"But law! child, you look fagged out. Sit down, sit down, and don't
mind an old woman's grumbling."

"Did I ever?" laughed the girl, sinking into the big chair as if
indeed willing to rest. "But I can't sit here long, nursie; my day's
work, or rather my night's work, is not yet finished."

"Not yet? Oh, Madeline, my little nursling, give up these wild plans
and plots; they will bring you no good."

"Won't they?" nodding significantly. "I think they will do me good,
and you, too, Nurse Hagar; and before very long, too. Why, bless you,
these precious plotters won't wait for me to bring them into my net;
they are tumbling in headlong--all of them. They are helping me, with
all their might, to bring about their own downfall. Hagar," and the
girl leaned suddenly forward and looked closely into the old woman's
face, "I want you to come back to Oakley."

Hagar started back as if struck by a knife. She was about to open her
lips and set free a torrent of indignant protest, when the girl lifted
her hand, interrupting her in the old characteristic way.

"Wait until I explain, auntie. I want you to go to Oakley to-morrow,
at the hour when Mr. John Arthur is always supposed to be taking his
after-dinner nap. Just after dinner, I want you to see Madame Cora;
manage it in your own way, but see her you must."

"I won't!" broke in the old woman.

"You will," said the girl, quietly, "when I have told you why."

Drawing her chair close to that occupied by her companion, she resumed
in a low voice:

"Yesterday Miss Arthur sent me to the village to purchase some
trifling articles for the adornment of her precious person. Returning
through the woods, I came upon Mr. Davlin and his 'sister,' conversing
very earnestly, just at the lower end of the terrace. I arrived at the
hedgerow stile just in time to hear madame say, very emphatically,
that something must be done immediately. They were going down the
terrace steps when I passed them, pretending to be in a great hurry.
As soon as their backs were toward me, I turned quickly, and without
noise crossed the stil