in a dream!" But the wind having blown
away the hail-cloud, the stars were again shining down into the hall.
One or two forlorn-looking searchers were still there; the rest had
scattered like the gnats. A few were already at home; some were
harnessing their horses to go, nor would wait for the man in the moon
to light his lantern; some were already trudging on foot through the
dark. Hesper and Miss Yolland were talking to two or three friends in
the drawing-room; Lady Margaret was in her boudoir, and Mr. Mortimer
smoking a cigar in his study.

Nowhere could Letty find Susan. She was in the farmer's kitchen behind.
Tom suspected as much, but was far from hinting the possibility. Letty
found her cloak, which she had left in the hall, soaked with rain, and
thought it prudent to go home at once, nor prosecute her search for
Susan further. She accepted, therefore, Tom's renewed offer of his
company.

They were just leaving the hall, when a thought came to Letty: the moon
suddenly appearing above the horizon had put it in her head.

"Oh," she cried, "I know quite a short way home!" and, without waiting
any response from her companion, she turned, and led him in an opposite
direction, round, namely, by the back of the court, into a field. There
she made for a huge oak, which gloomed in the moonlight by the sunk
fence parting the grounds. In the slow strength of its growth, by the
rounding of its bole, and the spreading of its roots, it had so rent
and crumbled the wall as to make through it a little ravine, leading to
the top of the ha-ha. When they reached it, before even Tom saw it,
Letty turned from him, and was up in a moment. At the top she turned to
bid him good night, but there he was, close behind her, insisting on
seeing her safe to the house.

"Is this the way you always come?" asked Tom.

"I never was on Durnmelling land before," answered Letty.

"How did you find the short-cut, then?" he asked. "It certainly does
not look as if it were much used."

"Of course not," replied Letty. "There is no communication between
Durnmelling and Thornwick now. It was all ours once, though, Cousin
Godfrey says. Did you notice how the great oak sends its biggest arm
over our field?"

"Yes."

"Well, I often sit there under it, when I want to learn my lesson, and
can't rest in the house; and that's how I know of the crack in the
ha-ha."

She said it in absolute innocence, but Tom laid it up in his mind.

"Are you at les