shock, recovered his balance as by a miracle, and hastened to ascertain
the extent of the mishap; but finding no harm done, he picked up his gun
and surveyed Belle with considerable disfavour.

"You might have caused a very nasty accident, young lady," he said.
"It's a mercy the charge didn't land in either your leg or mine. Why
don't you look where you're going?"

Belle raised herself carefully from the pool, glancing with much concern
at the large green stains which had reduced her dress to a wreck, and at
the moist condition of her silk stockings.

"How could I know any one was round the corner?" she replied, somewhat
sulkily. "I wonder what my mother would have said if you'd killed me.
I'm not sure if my leg isn't shot through, after all."

"Let me look," said the colonel quietly. "No, that's not a wound, though
you've grazed it a little, very likely in falling. There's no real
damage, and I think you're more frightened than hurt."

"My dress is spoilt," said Belle, determined to have a grievance. "These
green stains will never wash out of it. It's really too bad."

"Be thankful it's only your dress, and not your skin," said the owner of
the Chase, with scant sympathy. "What are you doing here, so far away
from the Parade? You had better go home to your mother, and tell her to
take more care of you, and not let you wander about alone to get into
mischief."

"I was going home as fast as I could," retorted Belle, not too politely,
for she disliked the old gentleman extremely, and wished he would not
interfere with her. "And I think my mother knows how to take care of me
without any one telling her, thank you."

"I have no doubt she imagines she does," replied Colonel Stewart, rather
bitterly. "I can't say I admire the result. I should certainly wish to
teach you better manners if I had any share in your bringing up."

"I'm glad you haven't," said Belle smartly; and catching Micky in her
arms, she put an abrupt end to the conversation by running away again at
the top of her speed over the shallows towards the mainland.

"He's perfectly horrid!" she said to herself. "This is the third place
I've met him, and each time he has been more disagreeable than the last.
I can't imagine why, but I somehow feel as if he had taken quite a
dislike to me."

CHAPTER XIII.

READING THE RUNES.

"Words from the long far-away
Link the dim past with to-day."

Isobel descended from the headland in the low