mes around and above her, the ocean
beneath. I heard her call to me, speak to me:

"'Le, I do not want to leave you, but see! I must take the water to escape
the fire!'

"And suddenly, as if the burning ship were swallowed up in the midnight
sea, the vision vanished. Three times I had this vision, children. And it
troubled me, but in the excitement of my home-coming I forgot it until
now. Now I remember it, and receive it as a warning."

"I can read it! I can read it!" said Wynnette, with her weird, eldritch
look and tone. "I can read it, and it is just what I believed before I
heard of it! Odalite is driven somehow, by some one or something, not only
to marry, but want to marry, Anglesea to save herself from some evil! Oh!
I feel it even in my bones! And if she is driven quite into the marriage,
I tell you there will be some awful tragedy like that of the Bride of
Lammermoor! Anglesea will be found in the morning with his wizen slit--I
mean with his throat cut--and Odalite will be sitting in the ashes
gibbering and mopping and mowing like an idiot!"

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried little Elva, covering her face with her hands and
shivering through all her small frame.

"See, you have frightened the child, Wynnette! You should not say such
wild, extravagant things, my dear!" said Le, rebukingly.

"I said it to fetch you! I mean I said it to make an impression on you!"
retorted Wynnette.

"Oh, Le! can't you be Young Lochinvar and carry her off from the wedding?"
pleaded little Elva.

"Hardly, my darling!

"'The fair Ellen of Young Lochinvar'

was willing to be carried off, and Odalite is not, which makes all the
difference, you know!"

"Oh, but she would be glad afterward!" persisted Elva.

"Oh, hush, Elf! He won't try it! The age of chivalry is past!" indignantly
replied Wynnette.

"We will walk on," said Le.

And they resumed their tramp toward Greenbushes, where they arrived in
about another hour, and where they spent the day, returning home in the
evening.

"Oh, Le! Sweet, dear, darling Le! won't you please carry off Odalite, just
like Young Lochinvar did fair Ellen? Oh, please, Le! It would be so easy!
You could have George saddled and brought round to the front door. George
is the fastest and the strongest horse in the stables, and you could
snatch her up and run out with her and be in the saddle and away before
folks could get over their surprise. And she would be glad afterward! I
know