across from curb to curb, and showed a | I can not truly say where the light came bit of the old well rope still hanging there. from; all that I know is that in some way It is strange, señor, but this scrap of rope, it came from the child. on which human hands long since had ceased to move, made the dismalness of that most dismal place more dismal still.

"The child was a most curious little creature, and saddening to look upon. On its back was a cruel hump that raised its shoulders near to its ears, and that drew in its poor little breast until its body was bent forward like the body of one crushed down by the weight of many woful years. There was a halt in its gait, as though one leg were shorter than the other; but this I could not surely know, for the little gown, of some dark stuff, in which it was clad fell completely to the ground. But what was most pitiful about it was the expression of its little wizened face-eager, earnest, longing, and filled with a great melancholy. In the faces of most little children whom God has sent into the world ill-shaped and crippled, señor, you do not see this sorrowful

"I longed to turn and run away. In that dead air, laden with the evil odor of the crawling plants, I was suffocated in body and in soul. But I could not turn. On the contrary, I felt myself moving forward through the ruins of the gate, the dry wood crackling as it broke before my arms and beneath my feet, and raising about me a little cloud of dust. The crackling, slight though it was, sounded in my ears like pistol-shots. From somewhere among the ruined rafters above, a tecolate -bird of evil omen-uttered its shuddering cry; and a moment later I heard the flapping of its heavy wings as it swept by me, rustlingly, in the darkness, bringing to my troubled mind with tenfold force and viv-look, though it surely comes later, when idness our Indian proverb:

Cuando el tecolate canta,
El indio muere.'

"As I stood there, longing to get away, yet with my feet held fast, trying to think of the blessed saints in heaven who in their infinite love and mercy watch over and guard helpingly sinful men on earth, I became conscious of a pale, glowing light under the arcade in the corner of the patio to the right of where I stood. It was not like the light of fire or candle, but rather like the glow of starlight in clear, still air. It grew brighter as I looked upon it, until I could see clearly that it came through an open doorway-whereof the door lay rotting upon the ground-that led into what once must have been the sala. Presently out from this doorway came a young child: and the light came with the child, seeming to form around it a circle of brightness, leaving the doorway and the sala beyond it dark. The strangest part of this strange brightness was that it came not from a light that the child carried, but from the child itself. The little hands were stretched out forwardly, as though feeling the way; and as I looked at the child's face I seemed to see a clear white light raying out from the little finger-tips; yet when I looked at the hands these rays disappeared, and the light seemed to come from a luminousness that surrounded the child's head; and that, in turn, disappeared when I looked upon it straitly.

So

they have learned sorrowfully how cruel the world can be. But as little children the mother's love and the father's tenderness are guards against the world's harsh heartlessness, so that the poor little ones receive even more than full measure of gentleness and love, and so love more than children do to whom no birthright of sorrow belongs. But this crippled child seemingly never had known what love was, and already, though of such tender years, had come to the full sad knowledge of its evil plight-as though those who most of all should have comforted and cherished it had been angered with themselves for having begotten so rueful a little monster, and had vented on it freely the spite and malice of their evil hearts.

"Do not believe, señor, that all these thoughts came into my mind then. In truth I was too much frightened, so prodigious was what I saw, to think at all. But the figure and the face of the child always since have remained a clear picture in my mind, and looking on that picture these thoughts have come to me. From what passed before my eyes that night I do not for a moment doubt that the poor little one was so hated of its wicked parents that at last their hatred took shape and substance in the working of a deadly crime.

"The child looked over toward me for a little, and then, beckoning to me, moved slowly down the shadowy arcade: and that little motion drew me after it as re

sistlessly as I would have been drawn by "While I looked at it fearfully the all the mules together of my tren. The shadows which had come with us in our moonlight was gone now, but from the strange journey moved nearer to it, and child came light enough for me to see my grew more real, and in a little I saw way over and among the broken stuff- clearly two human figures, a woman and ruins of doors and rafters-that lay in a man. The woman was young and beaumasses under the arcade. When the child tiful, señor, but most evil was her face, came to the rear of the patio, where the and cruel the look that came from her store-rooms and stables once had been, it dark eyes. Such hate as was in her gaze entered a gap in the adobe wall-whence | when she turned upon the child I never the door long since had dropped away- saw on human face before: please God I drawing me after it by making again the never may see such look on human face same slight motion with its hand. The again! And, very terrible, withering her room seemed to have been used to keep beauty, her flesh had the look of dead flesh horse trappings in, for long pegs such as in which decay has begun. There were saddles are hung upon projected from livid streaks of purplish-blue upon it, most the walls, and upon a broken shelf there shocking to look upon; and her hair grew still remained a pair of wooden stirrups rankly, as hair grows in the grave. More and a rusty spur. As I entered this room horrible still was the man. Around his there came upon me a shuddering feeling neck was a dark purple mark, his tongue that the child and I no longer were alone. was a little beyond his lips, his eyes proIt is hard to tell why this feeling so terri- truded, lustreless and sodden. His face fied me, for until that very moment I had was swollen, yet drawn in lines of wrenchbeen longing with all the strength of my ing pain, and his head was not set firmly nature for any companionship other than on his shoulders, but lolled hideously to that of the unmortal companion whom fate one side. Once, in the war-time long ago, had thrown me with. Perhaps, though, I saw such another face as this; it was my greater terror was because whatever that of a man whom the enemy had it was that was near me was felt rather caught and hung for a spy, and who had than seen. For I could see nothing clear- lain where we chanced to find him for ly, only I knew that beside me, to my right nearly a week under the summer sun. or left, anywhere but where I looked direct- God help me, señor, those two faces will ly, were shadowy forms. be living horrors to me as long as my life lasts! And yet this grisly, distorted face that I now saw, though stamped with the seal of more and worse than death, was informed by a fearful energy of hate when it was turned upon the child.

"The child moved slowly across the room to where-as the light that went out from it showed me-a broken door in the floor was raised against the wall, and a flight of steps went downward into darkness. (A strange thing, this, to find in a Mexican house, señor, as you well know.) Down the stairway, that curved in descending so that after a few steps the entrance was hid, it passed, and I followed, and with me came whatever it was that I had felt or seen in the room above. The stairs went down a long way, until it seemed to me that we must be near the level of the water in the well in the patio. | They ended in a low room, the ceiling of which was laid on arches sprung from a line of stone pillars along the centre to the outer walls. There was a sound of trickling water. But I could see no water running, only in one corner was a still, dark pool, that vanished in the blackness of a low archway. Doubtless from this source the well was fed. Upon the stone curb of the pool, looking wofully down upon the water, the child stopped.

"The child, standing by the pool and looking down into the water, evidently did not perceive the two forms close behind it. There was a stealthy quiet in their air, and their feet were bared so that their steps should make no sound: as though they had watched it descend to this dark, hidden place-perhaps had sent it here-and then had followed, close behind it, silently.

"As I watched, my heart's blood running cold, they exchanged glancesglances most horrible between dead, livid eyes-and then stole nearer to it still, while the man loosened from his side a long, thin knife. If ever I saw two devils incarnate, I saw them then. In a moment more they were at the child's back, and here they paused, while the woman freed her arms of her shawl, showing her beautiful bosom, that, like her face, was

made ghastly by the ravages of death, and while the man drew back the arm that held the knife. Like a flash the woman's hands descended upon and firmly clasped the child's shoulders; like a flash the hand with the knife struck and struck again. For an instant I saw in the two faces a look half of horror, half of savage, devilish joy, and then the child fell out from under the woman's hands into the still pool, and the black water, closing over it, shut out the light, and left me with the horror of darkness upon my senses, with the horror that comes of witnessing a deadly crime upon my soul.

"Through that darkness God knows how I found the stairway and clambered up it, crossed the little room above and the ruin-strewn arcade, and so came out at last through the crumbling gateway into the

free night air. My heart lay almost dead within me, and, although in those days I was a strong, vigorous man, I trembled in all my flesh, and scarce could walk.

"But I knew that this horror had not come upon me without a purpose, and I felt sure that the Blessed Virgin, who loves little children well, had directed my steps from her altar so that I might know what wickedness had been done, and so that by me the soul of the poor murdered child might be saved out of purgatory, where its dismal ending on earth had left it for all these years. Therefore that very night I went to a holy priest who ministered in the cathedral, and gave money that masses should be said for the repose of a restless soul."

66

And you never went back to the house, Juan?"

"Señor, God forbid!"

JUDITH SHAKESPEARE:

HER LOVE AFFAIRS AND OTHER ADVENTURES.

CHAPTER I.

AN ASSIGNATION.

T clear, and shining morn

ding of a willful coquetry, an outward and obstinate coldness and indifference. For the rest, her hair, which was somewhat short and curly,

It was a fair, eet May time of the year, glossy brown, chay, was of a light and

And

it; she had a good figure, for she came of
a quite notedly handsome family; she
walked with a light step and a gracious
carriage; and there were certain touches
of style and color about her costume
which showed that she did not in the
least undervalue her appearance.
so it was "Good-morrow to you, sweet
Mistress Judith," from this one and the
other; and "Good-morrow, friend So-and-
so," she would answer; and always she
had the brightest of smiles for them as
they passed.

when a young English damsel went forth from the town of Stratford-upon-Avon to walk in the fields. As she passed along by the Guild Chapel and the Grammar School, this one and the other that met her gave her a kindly greeting; for nearly every one knew her, and she was a favorite; and she returned those salutations with a frankness which betokened rather the self-possession of a young woman than the timidity of a girl. Indeed, she was no longer in the first sensitive dawn of maidenhood-having, in fact, but recently passed her five-and-twentieth birthday— Well, she went along by the church, but nevertheless there was the radiance of and over the foot-bridge spanning the youth in the rose-leaf tint of her cheeks, Avon, and so into the meadows lying adand in the bright cheerfulness of her eyes. jacent to the stream. To all appearance Those eyes were large, clear, and gray, with she was bent on nothing but deliberate dark pupils and dark lashes; and these are idleness, for she strayed this way and a dangerous kind; for they can look de- that, stooping to pick up a few wild flowmure, and artless, and innocent, when ers, and humming to herself as she went. there is nothing in the mind of the owner On this fresh and clear morning the air of them but a secret mirth; and also seemed to be filled with sweet perfumes and alas-they can effect another kind after the close atmosphere of the town; of concealment, and when the heart with- and if it was merely to gather daisies, and in is inclined to soft pity and yielding, cuckoo-flowers, and buttercups, that she they can refuse to confess to any such had come, she was obviously in no hurry surrender, and can maintain, at the bid-about it. The sun was warm on the rich

green grass; the swallows were dipping| and flashing over the river; great humblebees went booming by; and far away somewhere in the silver-clear sky a lark was singing. And she also was singing, as she strayed along by the side of the stream, picking here and there a speedwell, and here and there a bit of self-heal or white dead-nettle; if, indeed, that could be termed singing that was but a careless and unconscious recalling of snatches of old songs and madrigals. At one moment it was:

Why, say you so? Oh no, no, no;
Young maids must never a-wooing go.
And again it was:

Come, blow thy horn, hunter!
Come, blow thy horn, hunter!
Come, blow thy horn, jolly hunter!

And again it was:

For a morn in spring is the sweetest thing
Cometh in all the year!

And in truth she could not have lit upon
a sweeter morning than this was; just as
a chance passer-by might have said to
himself that he had never seen a plea-
santer sight than this young English
maiden presented as she went idly along
the river-side, gathering wild flowers the
while.

Now if any one had noticed the quick and searching look that she flashed all around on the moment of her emerging from the brush-wood-the swiftness of lightning was in that rapid scrutiny-he might have had some suspicion as to the errand that had brought her hither; but in an instant her eyes had recovered their ordinary look of calm and indifferent observation. She turned to regard the wide landscape spread out below her; and the stranger, if he had missed that quick and eager glance, would have naturally supposed that she had climbed up through the wood to this open space merely to have a better view. And indeed this stretch of English-looking country was well worth the trouble, especially at this particular time of the year, when it was clothed in the fresh and tender colors of the springtime; and it was with much seeming content that this young English maiden stood there and looked abroad over the prospect

at the placid river winding through the lush meadows; at the wooden spire of the church rising above the young foliage of the elms; at here and there in the town a red-tiled house visible among the thatched roofs and gray walls and orchards—these being all pale and ethereal and dream-like in the still sunshine of this quiet morning. But in course of time, when she came It was a peaceful English-looking picture to a part of the Avon from which the bank that ought to have interested her, however ascended sharp and steep, and when she familiar it may have been; and perhaps it began to make her way along a narrow was only to look at it once more that she and winding foot-path that ascended had made her way up hither; and also to through the wilderness of trees and bush-breathe the cool sweet air of the open, and es hanging on this steep bank, she became to listen to the singing of the birds, that more circumspect. There was no more seemed to fill the white wide spaces of the humming of songs; the gathering of flow-sky as far as ever she could hear. ers was abandoned, though here she might have added a wild hyacinth or two to her nosegay; she advanced cautiously, and yet with an affectation of carelessness; and she was examining, while pretending not to examine, the various avenues and open spaces in the dense mass of foliage before her. Apparently, however, this world of sunlight and green leaves and cool shadow was quite untenanted; there was no sound but that of the blackbird and the thrush; she wandered on without meeting any one. And then, as she had now arrived at a little dell or chasm in the wood, she left the foot-path, climbed up the bank, gained the summit, and finally, passing from among the bushes, she found herself in the open, at the corner of a field of young corn.

Suddenly she became aware that some one was behind her and near her, and instantly turning, she found before her an elderly man with a voluminous gray beard, who appeared to affect some kind of concealment by the way he wore his hat and his long cloak.

"God save you, sweet lady!" he had said, almost before she turned.

But if this stranger imagined that by his unlooked - for approach and sudden address he was likely to startle the young damsel out of her self-possession, he knew very little with whom he had to deal.

"Good-morrow to you, good Master Wizard," said she, with perfect calmness, and she regarded him from head to foot with nothing beyond a mild curiosity. Indeed, it was rather he who was embar