ch other's faces.

"You might have thought of bringing a hat, Miss Polly."

"Oh, never mind, Maggie. You do look shabby; your frock is torn right
open."

"Well, Miss, I got it a-coming to save you. Miss Polly, Mrs. Power's
back in the kitchen. Hadn't we better run? We'll talk afterwards."

So they did, not meeting any one, for Mrs. Cameron and the children were
all at dinner, and the servants were also in the house. They ran through
the kitchen garden, vaulted over the sunken fence, and found themselves
in the little sheltered green lane, where Polly had lain on her face and
hands and caught the thrushes on the July day when her mother died. She
stood almost in the same spot now, but her mind was in too great a
whirl, and her feelings too excited, to cast back any glances of memory
just then.

"Well, Maggie," she said, pulling up short, "now, what are your plans?
Where are we going to? Where are we to hide?"

"Eh?" said Maggie.

She had evidently come to the end of her resources, and the intelligent
light suddenly left her face.

"I didn't think o' that," she said: "there's mother's."

"No, that wouldn't do," interrupted Polly. "Your mother has only two
rooms. I couldn't hide long in her house; and besides, she is poor, I
would not put myself on her for anything. I'll tell you what, Maggie,
we'll go across Peg-Top Moor, and make straight for the old hut by the
belt of fir-trees. You know it, we had a picnic there once, and I made
up a story of hermits living in the hut. Well, you and I will be the
hermits."

"But what are we to eat?" said Maggie, whose ideas were all practical,
and her appetite capacious.

Polly's bright eyes, however, were dancing, and her whole face was
radiant. The delight of being a real hermit, and living in a real hut,
far surpassed any desire for food.

"We'll eat berries from the trees," she said, "and we'll drink water
from the spring. I know there's a spring of delicious water not far from
the hut. Oh! come along, Maggie, do; this is delightful!"

An old pony, who went in the family by the stately name of Sultan, had
been wont to help the children in their long rambles over the moor. They
were never allowed to wander far alone, and had not made one expedition
since their mother's death. It was really two years since Polly had been
to the hut at the far end of Peg-Top Moor. This moor was particularly
lonely, it was interspersed at intervals with thickets of rank
undergrowth and