informant no sooner saw this light--probably a reflection from
one of the distant torches--than he coolly gave up searching for you.
'They are dead,' says he, 'and the spirits in the old church are saying
mass for their souls. I'll go to supper.' So he came here to drink my
ale, and tell his cock-and-bull story."

Grace put in her word with a sweet, candid face. "Sir, if there had been
a light in that church, should we not have seen it?"

"Why, of course you would: you must have been within a hundred yards of
it in your wanderings. I never thought of that."

Grace breathed again.

"However, we shall soon know. I have sent George and another man right
up to the church to look. It is quite clear now."

Grace felt very anxious, but she forced on a careless air. "And suppose,
after all, there should be a light?"

"Then George has his orders to come back and tell me; if there is a
light, it is no ghost nor spirit, but some smuggler, or poacher, or
vagrant, who is desecrating that sacred place; and I shall turn out with
fifty men, and surround the church, and capture the scoundrel, and make
an example of him."

Grace turned cold and looked at Mr. Coventry. She surprised a twinkle of
satisfaction in his eye. She never forgot it.

She sat on thorns, and was so distraite she could hardly answer the
simplest question.

At last, after an hour of cruel suspense, the servant came in, and said,
"George is come back, sir."

"Oh, please let him come in here, and tell us."

"By all means. Send him in."

George appeared, the next moment, in the doorway. "Well?" said Mr. Raby.

"Well?" said Grace, pale, but self-possessed.

"Well," said George, sulkily, "it is all a lie. Th' old church is as
black as my hat."

"I thought as much," said Mr. Raby. "There, go and get your supper."

Soon after this Grace went up to bed, and Jael came to her, and they
talked by the fire while she was curling her hair. She was in high
spirits, and Jael eyed her with wonder and curiosity.

"But, miss," said Jael, "the magpie was right. Oh, the foul bird! That's
the only bird that wouldn't go into the ark with Noah and his folk."

"Indeed! I was not aware of the circumstance."

"'Twas so, miss; and I know the reason. A very old woman told me."

"She must have been very old indeed, to be an authority on that subject.
Well, what was the reason?"

"She liked better to perch on the roof of th' ark, and jabber over the
drowning world; that wa