ope, in a somewhat troubled
tone, remembering how an innocent baker in Rossmoyne had had some of the
explosive matter in question thrown into his kitchen the night before
last,--"you don't really think that these parcels you speak of contain
infernal machines?--Yes, that is what they call them, my dear
Priscilla," turning to her sister, as though anxious to apologize for
having used a word calculated to lead the mind to the lower regions.

By this time both Kit and Terence are convulsed with delight at the
sensation they have created, and would probably have gone on to declare
the innocent Mrs. Mitchell an advanced Nihilist of the most dangerous
type, but for Monica's coming to the rescue and explaining matters
satisfactorily.

"Still, I cannot understand how you got up here so quickly," says Miss
Penelope. "You know Moyne--home I hope you will call it for the future,
my dears--" with a little fond pat on Monica's hand, "is quite three
miles from the station."

"We should have thought nothing of that," says Terence, "but for Kit;
she has had a fever, you know," pointing to the child's closely-cropped,
dark little head; "so we said we would just stroll on a little and see
what the country was like."

"And lovely it is," puts in Kit, enthusiastically. "We got up on a high
hill, and saw the sea lying like a great quiet lake beneath us. There
was scarcely a ripple on it, and only a soft sound like a sob." Her
eyes, that are almost too big for her small face, glow brilliantly.

"And then there came by a man with a cart filled with hay, and he nodded
to us and said, 'Good-morning, sir;' and so I nodded back, and said,
'How d'ye do?' to him and asked him was it far to Moyne House. 'A good
step,' he said; 'three miles at the very least.'"

"He didn't; he said _laste_," says Kit, who is plainly in a litigious
mood.

"At that," says Monica, breaking in eagerly, feeling, no doubt, she has
been left too long out in the cold, and that it is time her voice were
heard, "I suppose I looked rather forlorn, because he said, quite nicely
'Maybe ye'd not be too proud, miss, to get into me cart, an I'll dhrive
the lot of ye up to the House, where as luck has it, I'm goin' meself.'"
She mimicks the soft Southern brogue very prettily.

"So up we got," says Kit, gayly, "and away we went in the nice sweet
hay, jog trot, jog trot, and _so_ comfortable."

The Misses Blake by this time are filled with dismay. In Rossmoyne,
where familie