o
divert Gem from her troublesome thoughts, and Gem willing to gratify her
"grandma."

But the law of silence was not laid upon any one else but the trier of
the spell. And Miss Tabby and Miss Libby chattered together like a pair
of sister magpies for some minutes, when suddenly Miss Tabby exclaimed:

"Look out, Gem! Your chestnuts are beginning to crack; they will shoot
you presently, if you don't mind."

The warning came too late. A blazing chestnut was suddenly shot from the
hearth like a small bombshell, and struck Gem upon the right hand,
inflicting a slight burn.

With a faint cry she sprang up and shook it off; and she sat down
startled and trembling, for she was very delicate and very sensitive to
pain.

"Never mind, never mind a little smarting! When I was young I would have
been willing to have been scorched worse than that, to have had such a
powerful sign that some one loved me so fiercely as all that! Goodness!
how he loves you, to be sure! and how quickly he is coming to see you!
Come, pick up your chestnut, child, and see what mark it bears. Come,
now! Is it Cromartie?" inquired the old lady with an arch smile.

But the girl made no reply. She had picked up and blown out the blazing
emblem that she had playfully made a messenger of fate, and she was
gazing upon it. She remained pale and mute.

"Come, come; did you name it for that auburn-haired youth?" persisted
the old lady.

"I named it for--_the exile_--the lady who was borne from the flooded
prison that stormy night; I named it for--_my mother_," answered the
maiden in a low tone.

Silence like a panic fell upon the little party.

Mrs. Winterose was the first to break it.

"Gem! how dare you do such dreadful things?" she demanded, speaking more
harshly than she had ever before spoken to her spoiled child.

"It's enough to break anybody's heart to hear her say that," whimpered
Miss Tabby, wiping her eyes.

"And, oh! what a sign and an omen! If there's any truth in the spell,
her mother--if so be _she_ is her mother and is a living--her mother
loves her better than any one in the world, and is a hurrying to see her
now! For I never knew that to fail," said Miss Libby, clasping her hands
and rolling up her eyes.

Gem turned and gazed at the last speaker, while a superstitious faith in
the omen crept into her heart.

"There is nothing at all in it! I was only trying to amuse the poor
child by the old love spell. I had no thought it wou