on the turf.

Esther took it up and tried it on, then threw it

away and replaced her own of furze.

'Nay,' said she, 'I reckon, though hers be free o' prickles, I'd rather wear one o' gowld.'

CHAPTER XII.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE PIXIES.

THE evening sun fell slanting over her face, and lit a fire in the tangled hair of Esther. She had gone off into a day-dream, looking into the sky, and catching at the white moths that flickered over her.

At length she sat up. To the east the land fell away to rolling ground and valleys full of rich fertility, but in every other direction was tossed-up moor, and here and there a pile of granite.

She rose and took her way to a dip in the waste beneath a pile of rocks lower down the hill-side. Here a brook, whose cradle was among the granite masses above, having gathered body, came dancing down in a tiny cascade over a shelf; and here was a small cottage, hidden behind inclosure walls of stones piled up, their interstices plugged with turf, and their faces draped with white and pink stonecrop. A paddock and a potato field lay near the house, and there was also a shed that was formed on the principle of taking advantage of such huge stones as lay convenient, so as to economise the labour of building walls. The house was a little superior to the shed. It was low, of one storey, turf covered, with walls six feet thick, the stones bedded in peat, not lime. The floors were formed of ill-fitting slabs of granite, with black soil in the interstices crammed with relics of feasts, bits of bone, and broken crockery, compacted into a sort of cement. The inclosure walls, erected to protect the windows from being blown in by the winter gales, cut off all prospect. The house was apparently very old; it had an almost prehistoric look about it, so rude and weatherbeaten was it, but the rudeness of the masonry and the lichening of the stones were no real indications of antiquity in a district where for centuries the same customs had prevailedwhere no tool was used to dress the stones taken lichened and moss-grown from the moor, and piled up as taken to form walls.

The cottage had been inhabited, as far back as any could remember, by Roger Morideg, a moorman-that is to say, one whose duty it was to watch the cattle, ponies, and sheep turned out on the moor within his region.

The moorman lived all his life in the wilderness, rarely associated with others, lived on horseback without saddle, and the cob he rode would go anywhere, climb rocks, plunge through torrents, and thread the intricacies of a bog.

Roger Morideg's wife was a woman born and bred on the moors, far from church and school, accustomed from infancy to solitude, never going into a town even on market days, and perfectly content to be outside the pale of civilisation.

Roger and Tamsin had possessed but one child-a daughter; and as they could not afford to keep her at home doing nothing, when she was grown up into a strapping woman she was sent into service in Liskeard. But the girl could not endure the cramped life in a town, and the loss of independence in domestic service. She ran away from her mistress, and was afraid to return to her father. For a twelvemonth she was not heard of. Then she did reappear at the cottage, and died there, leaving to the care of Roger and his wife a little grandchild—a daughter-whose birth cost the mother her life.

'That is what comes o' sending a maid to town,' said old Roger. 'Dang me if ever Esther leaves the moor.'

Tamsin Morideg was much by herself; her husband spent the major part of his time from home. He wandered over the moor, carrying food with him strapped to his saddle, and slept not infrequently in holes among the rocks, wrapped in his cloak, whilst his faithful cob browsed on the short grass near, ready to come to him at a call in the morning. Tamsin had married young. She saw little of her kind; the neighbours were very distant in regard to situation and quite as much so in conduct. The nearest houses were small farms on the edge of the moor, and the yeomen's wives in them looked down on the wife of a moorman, and especially mistrusted her because of her peculiar eyes.

Tamsin had had several children, but all had died in infancy save the mother of Esther. All her love for her lost children was concentrated on this little girl. Esther was to her everything— her ambition, her darling, her trouble, and her joy. The child grew up, strongly built, healthy, and very unlike the other children of the parish. Her grandfather paid her little attention;

he despised women and girls. His own daughter had disappointed him.

As soon as Esther was old enough to talk, the old woman talked to her of her mother, glad to have the child to speak to concerning her, as Roger would not hear her mentioned. Then the child said, 'Gra'ma, who was my father?'

'Do not speak about it,' answered the old woman, looking round her, 'your mother never 'ud tell, but I reckon he wor a pixy. Your mother wor in a place to Liskeard-one day her wor gone. Nobody never knowed whither her'd gone. A year and a day passed, and her comed back wi' you, and her died!'

'But, grannie,' inquired the child, has my father never come to see me?'

The old woman shook her head.

'I'm sure I canna' say. Once when I wor a-rocking your cradle, and the sun were a streamin' in at the window, right over you, I seed a shadow come on the bit o' counterpane, and I looked up. There I seed at the window a head wi' thick red hair. The sun were shinin' right through his hair, just for all the world like the fern i' winter.'

'Did he say anything, granny?'

'No; he looked hard, and then I wor scared lest he'd cast the evil eye on you, and I jumped up to get an axe and turn the edge up to cut the charm. But he wor gone in a jiffy. I never seed 'n again.'

The strange stories of her grandmother made a deep impression on the mind of the child, and her imagination began to spin webs of wonder out of the hints thrown out relative to her mysterious origin.

Esther's sixth birthday was marked by an incident that deeply affected her.

Old Tamsin had made a cake, and the child insisted that it should be eaten by the little fall of the brook. The grandmother agreed, brought milk, and they sat together on a rock near the pool into which the stream plunged, eating the saffron cake, sipping the milk, and talking.

'Grandma,' said the child, what be all they great stone heaps on the high places; they be round as a platter, and some have great pieces of rock stuck up on edge about 'em, in a ring like.' 'They be pixy houses,' answered Tamsin.

"What! does my father live in one o' they?'

The old woman hesitated. 'Sure I cannot tell,' was her equivocating reply.

'Have you ever been inside a pixy house?'

'Never.'

'But my mammy lived there a year and a day.'
'Yes, I reckon-for aught I know contrary.'

'I should like to go inside,' said Esther.

'You must never say that again. You must never go near thickey places,' exclaimed the old woman, looking about her uneasily. There be no knowing who may hear you, and if they won't fetch y' away for saying of it.'

'Where to?'

'Why, to Pixy land, for sure.'

"What be that like?'

Again the grandmother looked uneasily about her. This be no place for talking o' the gude volk. Come within.'

‘Oh, granny, let us bide here.'

But the old woman was resolute, and drew her granddaughter after her back to the cottage. Then she told Esther a wonderful story of a little girl who had been enticed into a pixy house, and had seen there a palace standing on red pillars, and beautiful little people who were feasting; and then her guide took her through a door into a country where there was no sun, but for all that, it was full of light, that shone from Cornish diamonds, i.e. crystals, set in the roof. There ran rivers of tin, shining like purest silver, and the trees had leaves of copper that tinkled in the wind that blew through the underground world whenever the door into the upper world was opened. And on the bushes, in place of whortleberries-urts,' Tamsin called them-grew precious stones.

'What be precious stones, now?' asked Esther.
'Stones of many colours that sparkle and shine.'
'Go on, grandma.'

'Then,' continued the old woman, 'the man brought the little maid back through the door into the chamber as stood on pillars o' red, and gave her a golden cup out o' which to drink, and when her❜d a put'n to her lips, her fell back vast asleep, sure enough. When her waked, her wor lying outside of one o' thickey stone carns. It wor eventide, so her up and walked home; but when her came in at the door o' her home, all were changed to what it was. Her father wor dead, and her mother grown a poor

ou'd woman.

Her had a been lost for twenty years, and the twenty years had gone by wi' her as an hour.'

'I sh'u'd dear like to see the pixy world and the precious stone 'urts, granny.'

'But think, Esther; when you came back I might be dead.' 'I reckon I sh'udn't like that.'

'Come,' said the old woman, 'I'll show you some o' the beautiful things your mother had; her had 'em d'r say from the pixies.' The child sprang up, 'Oh, do y', granny, show them me.' Tamsin accordingly ascended a broken ladder, to a sort of loft in the roof, followed by Esther. The place was dark, and was a receptacle for rubbish of all kinds. In it was, however, a cypress chest sketched over by a red-hot iron with devices of men and women hunting with hawks and dogs. She dived into the depths, and drew forth a small case, which she put on her knees and opened.

The child crept close to her and looked, marvelling at what was produced a coral necklace and a pair of Roman pearl eardrops. 'What be they for?' asked Esther in a whisper.

"Them white things be for the ears. It's o' the likes o' they, so Scriptur saith, the gates o' heaven be made. The chain be for the neck.'

'Oh, granny, put the chain over me.'

The old woman did so.

'Now, granny, put on me them ear-things.'
'I canna' wi'out boring o' the ears.'
Then bore them, sure.'

'You'll cry, you will. It will hurt.'

'No, I won't cry. Try me, granny.'

'Then us must go down again,' said the old woman, and she and her granddaughter scrambled down the ladder, the child wearing the coral necklet, Tamsin holding the ear pendants.

Then Tamsin got a large needle and pierced the little girl's earlobes, and let her have the pearl drops to look at during the operation. The child uttered no exclamation of pain.

Now put them i' my ears, gran'mother.'

Whilst Tamsin was engaged decking out the child with the pearl pendants, suddenly she looked up and uttered a cry'He be there! He be looking in at you!' and she pointed to the window.

"Who, granny?'