tree which grew in the yard, the dog would
go to her, and putting his head in her lap, gaze into her face with such
a human look of pity in his eyes that her tears would fall like rain, as
she wound her arms around his neck and sobbed:

"Oh, dear old Rover, you know, and you are sorry for me. What should I
do without you! What shall I do when you are gone?" and the white lips
would frame a prayer that Rover might be spared to her long, for without
him life would be intolerable.

And yet Hannah had no foolish fancies, filled though the house was, with
the image of the dead man. She did not believe in ghosts, and had no
fear that the occupant of the hidden grave beneath the floor would come
back to trouble her; it was rather the horror of the crime, the sin,
which so oppressed her, filling her with the wildest fancies, and making
her see always the dreadful word murder written everywhere upon the
walls, and the blood-stains on the floor, where no trace was visible to
other eyes than hers. Sometimes in the dark night, in her lonely bed
beneath the roof, with the stars looking in upon her, she felt as if her
brain were on fire and that she was going mad with the load of anguish
and guilt, for she accused herself as equally guilty with her father,
inasmuch as she had witnessed the deed and was helping him to conceal
it.

"But God knows I cannot help it. I am bound with bonds I cannot break,"
she would cry, as she stretched her hands toward heaven in dumb
supplication for pardon and peace, which came at last to the troubled
spirit.

And though she never knew again the joy of youth which had left her
forever, there came to her long intervals of rest and quiet and
comparative peace, if not happiness; and when, three years after the
tragedy which had blighted her young life, she, with others of her
companions, ratified her baptismal vows and openly confessed Christ, He
who sees and knows the secrets of all hearts, knew that among those who
knelt to receive the rite of confirmation there was not one purer or
more sincere than she who thought herself the vilest of the vile.

Naturally, as time rolled on, and the peddler Rogers came no more to
Allington, inquiries were made for him, the people wondering if he
intended remaining in Wales the remainder of his life, or would he
appear in their midst again some day, with his balbriggans and Irish
linens. But as he had never been more to the citizens than a peddler of
dry-goods,