ed shyly at
the newcomer. They knew him, but in six months they had grown strange
to him.

"Arthur, where's your mother?" said John, at last able to walk firmly
up to the door.

"Don' know."

"When did yer see her lasst?"

"She wor 'ere gettin' us our tea," said another child; "but she didn't
eat nothin'."

John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen.

"You 'old your tongues," he said, "an' stay 'ere."

And he made for the door in the kitchen wall. But Arthur caught hold
of his coat tails and clung to them.

"Yer oughtn't to go up there--mother don't let any one go there."

John wrenched himself violently away.

"Oh, don't she! yo' take your 'ands away, yer little varmint, or I'll
brain yer."

He raised his stick, threatening. The child, terrified, fell back, and
John, opening the door, rushed up the stairs.

He was so terribly excited that his fumbling fingers could hardly find
the ribbon round his neck. At last he drew it over his head, and made
stupendous efforts to steady his hand sufficiently to put the key in
the lock.

The children below heard a sharp cry directly the cupboard door was
opened; then the frantic dragging of a box on to the stairs, the creak
of hinges--a groan long and lingering--and then silence.

They clung together in terror, and the little girls began to cry. At
last Arthur took courage and opened the door.

The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by the
wall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees,
in a dead faint.

At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane,
shouting "Mammy! mammy!" in an anguish of fright. Their clamour was
caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and
was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting
sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane. She stepped
to her door, opened it and listened.

"It's at Bessie's," she said; "whativer's wrong wi' the childer?"

By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her. Darkness was falling
rapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow,
and his halting gait.

"What is it, Arthur?--what is it, lammie?"

"O Cousin Mary Anne! Cousin Mary Anne! It's Uncle John, an' 'ee's
dead!"

She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child's hand in the
dark, and dragging him along with her.

"Where is he, Arthur?--don't take on, hone