mptorily. Poor Duncan had never felt so wretched in his life before.

"Where was that?" the woman asked.

"Oh! a long way off," Elsie replied. "We've come miles and miles."

"What you call the place you ran away from?" the woman asked, angrily.

"It hadn't got any particular name," Elsie replied. "It was out on the
moor."

"You will know the way back?" the woman asked.

"But I am not going back," Elsie said, defiantly. "We are going to
Killochrie to-morrow morning."

The woman only smiled grimly, and pointing to two stools, signified to
the children that they might sit down.

"Will you give us something to eat?" Elsie asked. "We are hungry--he
took our bread and cheese."

"Cheese?" the woman said, eagerly. "Where is it?"

"He ate it," Elsie replied.

"The pig! the greedy one!" the woman cried, angrily, as she reached down
a plate of bread from the corner shelf.

It was coarse and stale, but the children were too hungry to be
disdainful. At home they would have scorned such a supper with infinite
disgust, but now they ate it readily.

Presently, however, the woman got some more plates, and taking the lid
off an iron pot that stood beside the fire, she ladled out a mass of
what proved to be boiled onions. Having served her husband and herself,
she handed a small quantity to the children, which they found palatable
and comfortable in their wet, cold condition.

When this frugal meal was ended, she signed to them to follow her, and
taking them into the next apartment, led the way up the ladder. They
found themselves presently in a tiny loft, where all sorts of rubbish
was stored, together with a stack of onions. The woman cleared a space
by piling the things together in a more huddled mass than they were
already, and bringing several sacks out of the confusion, threw them
down on the floor to form a bed.

"Is that where we are to sleep?" Elsie asked. "What are we to have over
us?"

The woman pointed to one of the sacks.

"Look how wet my frock is!" Elsie cried, almost in despair. "Can't you
give us something to put over us while our things are getting dry?"

The woman went rummaging among the lumber, and presently brought out a
ragged, old gown of her own. Elsie took it from her almost with a
shudder of loathing.

She took off her sopping frock, and gave it to the woman to hang up.
Then she rolled Robbie up in one of the sacks as well as she could, and
spread another for him to lie down upon, leaving