old her all that has happened, and she herself wrote asking me
to bring you, and I promised I would."

Rose met her with soft, clinging kisses, and then Lady Glendower folded
her in an embrace such as Patty had not thought her capable of giving.

"I am proud of my brave niece," she whispered. "Patty, go upstairs with
Rose, and get Celine to measure you for your ball-dress. I am going to
give another ball next month, and you are to be the heroine."

Under skilful treatment Timothy Smith recovered his usual health, though
the injury to his hand and knee made him a cripple for the rest of his
life. The trial was another terrible experience for Patty, and Fanny
thought she would have died when she saw the prisoners stand forward in
the dock to receive sentence. "Five years' penal servitude," said the
judge, and Patty sometimes shudders to think that the five years are
nearly up.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

BY F. B. FORESTER.

"No, sir," the old keeper said reflectively. "I don't know no ghost
stories; none as you'd care to hear, that is. But I could tell you of
something that happened in these parts once, and it was as strange a
thing as any ghost story I ever heard tell on."

I had spent the morning on the moor, grouse shooting, and mid-day had
brought me for an hour's welcome rest to the lonely cottage, where the
old superannuated keeper, father to the stalwart velvet-jacketed
Hercules who had acted as my guide throughout the forenoon, lived from
year's end to year's end with his son and half-a-dozen dogs for company.
The level beams of the glowing August sun bathed in a golden glow the
miles of purple moorland lying round us; air and scenery were good to
breathe and to look on; and now, as the three of us sat on a turf seat
outside the cottage door enjoying the soft sleepy inaction of the
afternoon, a question of mine concerning the folk-lore of the district,
after which, hardened materialist though I called myself, I was
conscious of a secret hankering, had drawn the foregoing remark from the
patriarchal lips.

"Let's hear it, by all means," said I, lighting my pipe and settling
myself preparatory to listening. A slight grunt, resembling a stifled
laugh, came from Ben the keeper.

"You'll have to mind, sir," he put in, a twinkle in his eye. "Dad
believes what he's agoing to tell you, every word of it. It's gospel
truth to him."

"Ay, that I do," responded the old man warmly. "And why shouldn't I?
Didn't I