escribed
antidote from Ruth, and was left alone in the kitchen.

But the moment she was freed from one dread, she was seized by another;
suspicion took the place of terror; and as soon as she heard the toiling
of the goblins up the creaking staircase, she crept to the foot of it
after them, and with no more compunction than a princess in a
fairy-tale, set herself to listen. It was not difficult, for the little
inclosed staircase carried every word to the bottom of it.

"I _thought_ she wasn't dead!" she heard Ruth exclaim joyfully; and the
words and tone set her wondering.

"I saw you did not seem greatly astonished at the sight of her; but what
made you think such an unlikely thing?" rejoined her uncle.

"I saw you did not believe she was dead. That was enough for me."

"You are a witch, Ruth! I never said a word one way or the other."

"Which showed that you were thinking, and made me think. You had
something in your mind which you did not choose to tell me yet."

"Ah, child!" rejoined her uncle, in a solemn tone, "how difficult it is
to hide any thing! I don't think God wants any thing hidden. The light
is His region, His kingdom, His palace-home. It can only be evil,
outside or in, that makes us turn from the fullest light of the
universe. Truly one must be born again to enter into the kingdom!"

Juliet heard every word, heard and was bewildered. The place in which
she had sought refuge was plainly little better than a kobold-cave, yet
merely from listening to the talk of the kobolds without half
understanding it, she had begun already to feel a sense of safety
stealing over her, such as she had never been for an instant aware of in
the Old House, even with Dorothy beside her.

They went on talking, and she went on listening. They were so much her
inferiors there could be no impropriety in doing so!

"The poor lady," she heard the man-goblin say, "has had some difference
with her husband; but whether she wants to hide from him or from the
whole world or from both, she only can tell. Our business is to take
care of her, and do for her what God may lay to our hand. What she
desires to hide, is sacred to us. We have no secrets of our own, Ruth,
and have the more room for those of other people who are unhappy enough
to have any. Let God reveal what He pleases: there are many who have no
right to know what they most desire to know. She needs nursing, poor
thing! We will pray to God for her."

"But how shall w