asked, laughing merrily; "what
put the thought of my going away into this pretty head, lying here all
feverish with excited visions? Pshaw, Netta, you are a whimsie!"

"Then you won't go?" she said, her face brightening. "No thought of
becoming the governess this western family are seeking, and going away
with them, has entered your brain?"

"Why should there, Netta?"

"But would you say nay should you receive the offer?"

"I can tell better when the moment arrives. But there, Netta, don't
cloud that fair brow again. I feel well assured no such moment will
come."

"I'm not so sure, Annie."

"Well, well, let us kiss, and retire to be ready to receive the visitors
on the morrow."

And with a sisterly embrace they sought their private apartments.

CHAPTER V.

"O, show me a place like the wild-wood home,
Where the air is fragrant and free,
And the first pure breathings of morning come
In a gush of melody.
When day steals away, with a young bride's blush,
To the soft green couch of night,
And the moon throws o'er, with a holy hush,
Her curtain of gossamer light."

Alone Annie Evalyn was walking in the summer twilight over the rough
road toward Scraggiewood.

Near two months had elapsed since she last visited her Aunt Patty at the
rock-built cottage, and she pictured in her mind, as she walked on, the
surprise and good-natured chiding which would mark her old aunt's
reception. She gazed upward at the tall forest trees swaying to and fro
in the light evening breeze, and far into its dim, mazy depths, where
gray rocks lay clad in soft, green moss, and gnarled, uprooted trunks
overgrown with clinging vines, and pale, delicate flowers springing
beautiful from their decay. She listened to the murmuring of the brook
in its rocky bed, and a thousand memories of other years rushed on her
soul. The strange, fast-coming fancies that thronged her brain when she
in early childhood roamed those dark, solemn woods, or sat at night on
the lowly cottage stile, gazing on the wild, grotesque shadows cast by
the moonbeams from the huge, forest trees; or how she listened to the
solemn hootings of the lonesome owl, the monotonous cuckoo, and sudden
whippoorwill; or laughed at the glowworm's light in the dark swamps, and
asked her aunty if they were not a group of stars come down to play
bo-peep in the mead