herefore, only that one unfailing Confidant--the Invisible Friend to
whom the solitary child could pour out her heart, and whose inspirations
of comfort and guidance never fail to come again in return to true
souls.

One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses, sharpened by
watching, discerned a sound of steps treading under her window, and then
a low whistle. Her heart beat violently, and she soon heard the door of
Moses's room open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those
inconsiderate creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always will
when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices in a night-secret.
Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain, saw three men standing before the
house, and saw Moses come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw
on her clothes and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak, with a
hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance behind them,--so
far back as just to keep them in sight. They never looked back, and
seemed to say but little till they approached the edge of that deep belt
of forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried
along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the deep
shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging through the dense
underbrush.

CHAPTER XXI

THE TEMPTER

It was well for Mara that so much of her life had been passed in wild
forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down
the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as
steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with
such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost
in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was
beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now
and then came into a spot of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in
a deadly expression of resolve and determination. She was going after
_him_--no matter where; she was resolved to know who and what it was
that was leading him away, as her heart told her, to no good. Deeper and
deeper into the shadows of the forest they went, and the child easily
kept up with them.

Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this lonely wood, and
knew all its rocks and dells the whole three miles to the long bridge at
the other end of the island. But she had never before seen it under the
solemn stillness of midnight moonlight, which gives