But when night falls and work is over, the spot wears, to unaccustomed eyes, a dull and solitary aspect. On two sides the little river environs it closely; on the third the miller's garden and fields extend for a considerable distance; and on the other, the narrow highway alone separates the miller's domain from a few acres of woodland, the poor remnant of what had once been an extensive forest.

Not a house is nearer than a cluster of labourers' cottages, half-a-mile away; and the village of Hazeley, in itself but one straggling street, lies still further from the solitary mill. But those who once dwelt within it knew no fears. For years they had found shelter and safety under its roof, even when floods from the adjacent hills roared around the very doorstep, and isolated them for days from the dry ground beyond.

Their most troublesome visitors were but a footsore tramp, whose thanks and blessings were easily won by a seat in the porch, and a hearty meal; or-and this was but rarely— a gang of gipsies, whom the prudent dame, with a view to the safety of her hen-roost, while they encamped in the vicinity, was careful to conciliate.

Besides, Abel Weston, the miller, was largelimbed and strong-armed; and in the peaceful valley where he lived and prospered, greater crimes than the petty pilfering of saucy boys in the orchards or farm-yards, were almost unknown.

From the time she was a merry active child, delighted to help Mrs. Weston in her garden, or peep with awe-delighted eyes into the mysteries of grinding and bolting, Katie Morris, the neatest and prettiest little girl in Hazeley, had been a member of the miller's household.

At first she was welcomed as an amusing visitor; then prized for her tender assiduities, when the dame's eyes began to fail, and her once active limbs to stiffen; and, eventually, as Katie was one of a large family, whose parents could scarcely contrive to maintain them all, it was arranged that she should receive a regular wage for her willing services.

From thenceforth she resided entirely with the aged couple; and as she blossomed into fair womanhood, her light footfall and merry songs filling the house with pleasant sounds,

But her friends were not without that frequent blemish-family pride. In their great Bible there were registered generations of staunch yeomen, who had intermarried with the most reputable and ancient families in the county; and Katie, who had never heard a reproachful word from her indulgent employers, saw their brows bent upon her sternly and disapprovingly, when their nephew and heir, handsome Hugh, so far forgot himself as to linger by her side in the porch at twilight, and to steal a kiss from her cheek as they parted.

Abel Weston could easily separate the young people, and he did so, by sending Hugh to London to see a little of the world, under the guardianship of a bustling trader, who claimed kinship with him. But would this root out the love with which Katie had inspired the lad? And if not, what was to be done ?

Hugh was ardent and impetuous, and if aroused by aught he deemed unjust, or even ungenerous, obstinate to a degree. Against his choice what had they to urge but her poverty and her birth? They had well liked Katie, and she deserved that they should; but they never forgot that her mother was the daughter of a carter who had grown grey in their own service, or that her father! aye, here lay the greatest difficulty of all

Abel Weston had his hobbies, as other men have; his violin, which he treasured and caressed, and played with the enthusiasm of a fanatic; and his politics.

A Conservative, as his sires had been before him, he staunchly upheld Church and State, and refused to believe that the party for whom he voted-whether in power or out of power— could ever do wrong. And his opinions and prejudices, strenuously adhered to, and always vehemently expressed, were sometimes rehearsed at the White Horse at Hazeley, where the wealthy miller was generally listened to with respect. But Harvey Morris, the father of Katie, a journeyman carpenter, in a paper cap and patched jacket, not only chose to consider himself superior to the farming men who sat in the tap, and so quaffed his occasional pint at the door of the bar, but joined in the conversation carried on by the favoured few admitted to a seat within it. And not content with this intrusion, he had on more than one occasion ventured to contravene some of the miller's assertions; and to argue the rights and wrongs of the working-classes with all the rhetoric of an intelligent, but uneducated and dissatisfied man.

This Morris, with his radical notions and errors, must he be permitted to link himself with their family, and, perhaps, infuse his wild fancies into the mind of the young and enthusiastic Hugh? Abel Weston had begun by fostering a distaste for the saucy workman, whose noisy denunciations of the Government measures had shocked and disgusted him; but little by little the rancorous feeling spread until it deepened into hate; and in his wrath he declared to his grieving dame that he would sooner disinherit the boy than see him the husband of Katie Morris !

Katie was accounted by those who knew her best a high-spirited, quick-tempered girl; but now she bore changed looks and cold words uncomplainingly. To leave the mill was to quit Pazeley, and very possibly to see Hugh no more.

Besides, were not they who rebuked her his nearest and dearest relatives? and for his sake what could she not endure? By-andby-so she hopefully argued-they would see that the love which had sprung up in their bosoms was no light passion which

would wither beneath the first cloud in the sky; and, subdued by her patience and Hugh's entreaties, his uncle would withdraw his tacit opposition, and they should be happy once

more.

And thus it might have been, but for the interference of her father. Some gossip-loving neighbour seized the first opportunity of condoling with him on the sorrowful looks of his daughter, Hugh Weston's departure, and the miller's harshness.

His pride in arms that a slight should be cast upon his child, Morris threw down the plane with which he was industriously flogging floor-boards, and without vouchsafing a comment to his officious and now half-alarmed informant, put on his jacket, and went to the mill.

At the gate he encountered Katie, on her way to the village shop; and drawing her across the road to the shelter of the wood, angrily questioned her.

"You have been in tears! Nay, no denials! These purse-proud Westons have cast your poverty in your teeth, and told you that you are no fit match for their nephew; is it not so ?"

She attempted a faint disclaimer, but he would not listen to it.

"I have heard the whole truth of the matter, so why try to deceive me? Come home, child! Nay, you shall stay there no longer. Why, who and what are they to despise you? There is more sense in your little finger, Katie, than in all their shallow pates together! They shall pay dearly for their

insolent treatment of you!" and he shook his fist menacingly in the direction of the mill.

"Who has been telling you this, father? I have made no complaints. Is it known in the village?"

"Ay, child, for it was there I learned it. Leave this house at once. There is food and shelter for you at home."

"No," Katie replied, spiritedly, "I will never be a burden to you, nor stay in Hazeley to be pointed at. I will go right away."

"That's my brave girl! Never fret for Hugh Weston! The lad's well enough, but

there are better husbands to be had than he."

But, with the sound of that name, Katie's resolves melted away, and sitting down on a felled tree, she wept piteously.

Not knowing how to console her, Morris paced about, his ire increasing with every sob that burst from the lips of his daughter as she wept.

At last he broke out furiously: "I must be a blind fool, or I should have seen this long ago, and taken you away. But they shall repent every tear they have made you shed, as sure as my name's Harvey Morris! I'll have a day of reckoning with Abel Weston for this. Come home, I say, at once!” "Oh! no, no, father!" she pleaded; "the dame is not well; I could not leave with no one at hand to help her. I will quietly say that you have bid me come away, and I promise you that some time in the evening I will let you know when I can be spared."

At first, Morris would not hear of this concession. The yearning tenderness Katie felt for those at whose board she had sat so long he could not comprehend, and was half disposed to rate her soundly for her want of spirit. But she was resolute; and, still muttering threats against those who contemned her, he plunged more deeply into the wood, too much discomposed to return to his daily labours.

Katie went on her errand; heard her delay crossly commented on without reply; and then faltered out her intention of quitting the mill.

Dame Weston clasped her feeble fingers and sighed piteously. The miller, although more moved than he would have confessed even to himself, heard her with apparent composure and satisfaction.

"It will be for the better, my wench," he said; "better for you, and for all of us. And you're going quite away? Right; quite right. Get into the town, and see a little more of life; and if you marry a decent steady lad, let's know, Katie, and the missus shall send ye a wedding-dinner, and I'll find something towards the house furniture."

"God bless ye, Katie, wherever ye go," said the old lady, tremulously. "I shall miss ye, sadly. I wish

She caught the warning look of her husband and paused; and, by common consent, Katie's future was not discussed again.

With an aching heart, the poor girl all through that day went slowly about the house, bidding a mute farewell to the cosy chambers her willing hands would arrange no more. On the morrow, when the waggon went to the town with a load of flour, the carter was commissioned to bring back with him an elderly cousin of Mrs. Weston's, who could take Katie's place for the present.

Ah! they would soon replace her. Perhaps when Hugh returned, another would be filling her duties so deftly that they would almost cease to remember her.

his wife; perhaps for the reason that he met them in his own strength, while she, with truer wisdom, sought the sustaining aid of a Divine arm, and learned in the only book she ever read, to be patient and hopeful.

From her sympathising tenderness Katie won consolation; and when she rose up to depart it was with changed feelings, and a determination to emulate that dear mother's resignation and unfailing trust in Providence.

As she crossed the threshold a sudden thought made her pause and return into the kitchen. "Mother, I'll not go back along the road. Betty Jones is standing at her open door, and I don't care for her to see my swollen eyes. I'll run down the garden and cross the fields, and so home by the wood." "It's a long round and an unked (lonely) one," her mother dubiously remarked; but

The mill had been her home so long, that even now, with her trunk packed for removal, and her sad and silent farewells said to those nooks in the garden and by the river, where Hugh had first whispered his love, it was difficult to realise that she was going away, and for ever.

The evening closed in; the cloth was spread for supper, and Abel Weston, who had lingered in the counting-house until the last moment, came in to partake of it.

And now Katie remembered her promise to her father, and reached down her bonnet and shawl.

Thee needn't hurry back, child," said the miller, with something of remorseful kindness in the tones of his voice. "If thee art a bit late, dame shall go to bed, and I'll smoke a pipe in the garden and wait for thee."

Katie's soul was too full of heaviness to make more than a brief reply to this unexpected offer; but she stooped over Mrs. Weston ere she departed, and kissing the old lady's wrinkled cheek, whispered an assurance that she would return in time to assist her up-stairs; an office that would never be hers again.

It was a relief to Katie to find the children a-bed, and her father out. From her mother she could procure the address of an old friend who resided at D-, a market-town twenty miles from Hazeley. Thither she would go, and seek a service in some secluded farmhouse, where the name of Hugh Weston could never reach her.

Unceasing struggles with poverty, and wearying endeavours to support a large family honestly and decently, chafed and fretted Harvey Morris into murmurs at his hard fortune. But they had a different effect upon

"God bless you!" she sped away.

The night was closing in sombrely, but Katie was familiar with the narrow track she had chosen, and trod it unerringly, even where the trees clustered thickly together, and threw their shadows darkly across it; and her thoughts were wandering in that blissful future, which her faith in Hugh's fidelity whispered was not impossible, when the tramp of heavy feet aroused her from her reverie.

Katie was no coward, and it was from no foolish timidity that she instantly stepped aside and crouched behind a convenient thicket. The same disinclination to betray her tears to the curious eyes of Mistress Betty Jones, now actuated her desire to avoid the rude stare of others, and she saw no harm in thus avoiding a threatened rencontre.

The next moment, three men, in the rough garb of the working-class, came hurrying by, huddling together, breathing loudly and quickly, and glancing fearfully to the right and to the left, as if some terrible shadow, which they vainly sought to avoid, was dogging their uncertain steps. Scarcely had they passed the hidden listener, when she started

up, with the word, "Father!" upon her lips,

for, on the one nearest to her, she certainly recognised in the dim twilight the old, but neatly-patched, jacket he commonly wore.

But without perceiving her they had gone on; and wondering a little at their haste, and the direction they were pursuing-for they were already far down a by-path leading to a bleak common beyond-she went on her own way to the mill.

A couple of hundred yards more, and the stile was reached; but here Katie stopped with an exclamation of surprise, for, fluttering on a bramble beside it, was the treasured India silk handkerchief which Mrs. Weston was in

the habit of folding over her head as she dozed in her arm-chair in the evening.

Carrying it in her hand, and speculating as to how it came there, she ran across to the gate of the miller's garden, where she expected to find him awaiting her coming.

But Abel Weston was not there, and the house-door was closed and fastened. This was unusual, for the miller, accustomed to be much in the open air, seldom sought the fire-side in hours so mild as this fair spring gloaming.

Katie rapped for admittance, and the summons remaining unanswered, she stepped back to reconnoitre the chamber-windows. Was it later than she had imagined, and had they now so indifferent about her-retired to rest?

If so, surely the key was hung in the porch, as it had sometimes been for Hugh; and, standing on tip-toe, she groped for the nail. It was empty; and now disposed to resent their seeming unkindness, she rattled the latch loudly and repeatedly, and then put her ear to the key-hole, and listened for the coming of the miller.

The ceaseless rushing of the water over the weir, and the steady ticking of the Dutch clock hanging in the nook by the dresser, alone broke the solemn stillness of the hour; for so calm was the night that even the leaves on the beech-trees opposite seemed to be at rest. But suddenly a low, lengthened groan, followed by a choking sigh, echoed through the quiet house; and Katie, with a shriek of terror, fled from the door, and down the lane to Hazeley.

CHAPTER II.

PALE as a corpse, breathless with running, and unconsciously retaining in her hand the silken kerchief, she reached the cluster of cottages already alluded to.

On a bench outside one of these, where a widow eked out the parish allowance by selling a variety of odds and ends, including table ale, two or three labourers were lounging to have a gossip and a neighbourly pipe, when Katie appeared.

"To the mill to the mill!" she frantically cried. "The door is fastened-I cannot open it and some one is dying within!"

A few words put the astonished men in possession of what little she knew, and they began to don their hats and rouse up a sleeping blacksmith, whose services might be required to gain them admittance.

The widow had now heard the unusual stir, and she joined the group gathering around the terror-stricken Katie.

Aye, what indeed! The prudent and pitiful woman forcibly detained the frenzied girl, while the men-their faces blanched by this dark evidence of some fearful occurrencehurried off to ascertain what had really happened.

It was well for Katie that, despite her struggles and angry remonstrances, those kind hands detained her; for fearful indeed was the sight that met the beholders, when they had burst open the door and entered the miller's living-room.

There had been spoilers in the home of the aged couple-spoilers and murderers. On his own floor, killed in defence of his hard earnings, lay Abel Weston; and his wife, in feebly endeavouring to protect him, had perished too.

Like one stunned by the vastness of the misfortune, stood Katie, insensible to the condoling and pitying speeches of those who crowded around her, chafing her cold hands and bathing her temples; until a simple, kindly-natured lad, who worked at the mill, in a burst of sorrow for the good old maister and missus, mentioned the name of their absent nephew.

Then Katie awoke from her lethargy. "Hugh! Oh, Hugh!" she moaned, and bursting through the throng, ran wildly down the road towards Hazeley.

"She's gone to her mother's," said one to another. "It's best so, for she'll feel it sorely. Poor thing!

Mrs. Morris divined something amiss from her first glimpse of Katie's haggard looks, and throwing aside her work, she folded her arms about the trembling young creature.

'My child, my dear child, what is it?" "Father!" gasped Katie; "where is he?" Ere the mother could reply he entered, as ghastly as the girl whose eyes were fearfully surveying him.

With a shudder he raised his hands to the light, and without speaking plunged them into a bowl of water.

"Katie! Harvey!” cried Mrs. Morris, her voice unsteady with apprehension. "What has happened? Harvey, why do you not answer? Where is your jacket?

"I have lost it," he said sullenly. "Lost it! But how?"

"No matter how. It is lost. Was it worth so much that you make so many words about it ?"

am

"But there is something wrong. Oh, I a sure that there is! What is it?"

Ere a reply could be given, the tidings of the double murder were loudly told outside the window by one passer-by to another; and Katie and her mother clung together in a closer

When he looked up it was to exclaim in low tones, "For God's sake, Katie, never repeat to any one the words I said this morning. Why do you look at me so dreadfully, child?" He came towards her as he spoke, but with extended arms she repulsed him.

"Father, they came through the wood-the murderers! and I crouched down and hid until they had passed."

Her mother uttered a devout exclamation for her safety; but Morris eagerly questioned, "Did you know them?"

Katie flung herself on her knees.

"Oh, tell me it was not you! It was your dress, and I spoke your name as you went by. But no, you could not mean this when you said those fearful words! Father, father, say that you are innocent, or I shall die of shame and horror!"

The over-wrought girl now lay on the floor in an hysterical attack, and neighbours, who heard her cries and moans, hastened to proffer their assistance. But Morris, recovering his usual acuteness, civilly dismissed them, and aided his wife in conveying their miserable child to bed.

There for many weeks she lay in the delirium of a low fever, unable to reply coherently when questioned respecting her partial discovery of the murder; unconscious that when the doctor pronounced her recovery hopeless, Hugh Weston had stolen to her side to kiss her burning cheek, and that her own ravings, added to other circumstances unfavourably construed, had made Harvey a marked and suspected man.

No traces of the guilty parties, who had possessed themselves of a large sum of ready money, had been discovered.

It was surmised that, after securing the door and flinging the key into the mill-pool, they had made their way across the wood to some convenient retreat; but the absence of any evidence,-no one but Katie having encountered them,-involved the affair in mystery.

In vain did Hugh offer large rewards; no one came forward to claim them. And as time went on, the belief which had arisen, none knew how, that Harvey Morris was concerned in the murder, gained ground in Hazeley.

There were more than one ready to prove that he had gone in the direction of the mill that morning deeply angered with the miller: and an old woman picking up sticks for her fire, had partly overheard his conference with his daughter.

From that moment he had not been seen near Hazeley until nightfall; when, as the door

had made his appearance without his jacket. And, in strange, and as it seemed, remorseful silence, he had assisted in raising the miller, who still breathed, and carrying him upstairs.

Where had he been all this time, and with whom?

So strong were the doubts of his innocence, that he was examined by the county magistrates; but his explanation, though improbable, was possible.

He frankly acknowledged the angry feelings he had cherished, and the idle menaces to which they had given birth; and alleged that, too much annoyed to resume his work, he had gone to a small, out of the way publichouse on the roadside, where he drank deeply, spending all the money he possessed; and on awaking from the stupor which followed this unusual excess, had found the jacket on which he had pillowed his head, stolen. That, ashamed to return home by daylight or confess his folly to his wife, he had skulked about the wood until the evening, arriving at the mill on his way home, just in time to be among the first who entered.

Although many shook their heads over this tale, yet the man's previous good character obtained his release. But he grew moody and sullen as people began to avoid and point at him, and the men with whom he worked to utter covert insinuations, to which his readiness to resent them with his fists, only gave a deeper colouring.

"Mary," he said to his wife one night, we must go away from here as soon as that poor child can be moved, or I shall be goaded into worse deeds than they accuse me of. Even you," he said, fiercely, "when Katie hides her face from me, shrink away too, as if you believed me guilty. God help a man when his own wife and children turn against him."

The faithful wife put her arm round his neck. "Don't speak so bitterly, Harvey! If now and then a dreadful fear has come over me, that you went to the mill that night to ask for Katie, and a quarrel arose, only tell me that it wasn't so, and I'll believe you."

66

"I didn't think that I should ever have to say to you, Mary, I'm an innocent man. You ought to know me better, if no one else does." Forgive me, Harvey," she pleaded; and putting his arms about her as she knelt beside him, the harassed and depressed Morris forgot his manhood, and wept.

"We'll go away, Mary. Perhaps in some new home, where there's no one to throw this in my teeth, I shall get back my old spirit and work with a will. But I can't here!