g, and running, and racing, and banging, and slamming of doors and
windows, and all the rout and rumpus made by the people as were trying
to save their own lives, suddenly the window was busted in. And before I
had time to say my prayers, in jumped a big man followed by a little
man."

"Lor!" exclaimed Mrs. Winterose and Miss Libby, in a breath.

"And the big man, in all his haste and hurry, he took _her_ up, Sybil,
as tenderly, and wrapped her up as carefully as if he had a been her
mother. He cussed some about the baby, which was a sort of surprise to
him; but Raphael--"

"Raphael!" exclaimed Mrs. Winterose and Miss Libby, in a breath.

"Yes, Raphael! He was the little man I soon discovered. Raphael pleaded
for the baby, and so the big man he let him save her; but he said how he
must leave the 'ole 'oman' meaning me, to be drownded, though goodness,
knows, for that matter, I wasn't so old as to be tired of life, being
only just turned of thirty-three--"

"Oh, bother about your age, Tabby! tell us about the reskee!" snapped
her mother.

"An't I a telling of you as fast as I can? But he did call me an ole
'oman, and me not thirty-four then, which I would say it if I was to die
for it, and he would a left me to be drownded, but Raphael he pled for
me like he did for the baby, and the waters was rising higher and
higher, and the uproar in the prison was getting louder and louder, and
the big man he swore at Raphael, and told him to fetch me on; but first
he made me swear on the Bible never to tell how we was reskeed. Then he
took us off on the boat which I tell you, mother, it was just awful to
be a riding on the high floods over the tops of the houses. It had done
raining, which was a good thing for my poor child, who was well wrapped
up also. They rowed me up to the Quarries, and put me out high, and on a
ledge of the mountain, and rowed away with my child, and that's the last
I ever saw or heard of her or her baby until that letter come to Mr.
Berners, a telling of him how she was took off to foreign parts, and a
releasing of me from my oath of silence."

"But you never told us, for all that."

"Because, as I said afore, I never felt free to do it until to-night,
and to-night it is borne in upon my mind as some thing will happen to
clear up that Hallow Eve mystery."

"It is a presentiment," said Miss Libby, solemnly.

"It is a fiddle!" snapped the old lady.

"You may call it a fiddle, mother, but I believe