got abroad somehow that it was Stiffing who fetched the skeleton key for Lady Laura, that—that black night, and a number of rude boys set upon Stiffing one spring evening; they hooted her and pelted her and chased her, called her a skeleton, and altogether behaved very badly."
"But if she did fetch the key, Lady Laura sent her for it."
"Oh yes, but boys and men, when they set upon a body like that, my lady, they only think of the victim before them. Stiffing wouldn't stop in South Wennock after that, but gave up her place."
"How shamefully unjust!" exclaimed Lucy.
Her indignation had scarcely spent itself when Frederick Grey entered, and Judith retired.
"Did you think I was lost, Lucy?"
"No, I began to think you were long; I suppose you could not get away?"
"That's how it was. John's young ones hid my hat, in fact; and Charles Lycett and his wife were spending the evening there. I don't know what good wishes for luck they don't send to Lady Lucy Grey," he added, drawing her before him, and keeping his hands on her waist.
Lucy laughed.
"What brings you alone?" he asked. "Where are they?"
"Laura went up-stairs to bed, and just now she called Jane. Frederick, Jane has been giving me a lecture."
"What about?"
"She bade me love and reverence you always," she whispered, lifting her eyes momentarily to his. "I told her the injunction was not needed: do you think it is?"
He snatched her closer to him: he covered her face with his warm kisses.
"Once, in this room—I have never told you, Frederick—I passed some miserable hours. It was the night following the examination of Mr. Carlton; of course it was altogether miserable enough then, but I had a fear on my own score, from which the others were free: I thought the disgrace would cause you—not to have me."
"Oh, you foolish child! you thorough goose! Lucy, my darling," he continued, in an altered tone, "you could not really have feared it. Had disgrace attached itself to every relative you possessed in the world, there would only have been the greater happiness for me in shielding you. My wife, you know it."
She looked at him with the prettiest smile and blush ever seen, and he released her suddenly, for Jane came in.
There is no more to tell. And I thank you, my readers, for your interest in coming with me thus far. It is well to break off when the sky is sunny: better to leave sunshine on the memory than storm.
(Conclusion.)
MY GRANDFATHER'S NARROW ESCAPE.
A Story of "Obeah.".
"First of all," said my grandfather, "do any of you happen to know what an Obeahman is?"
Only one or two of those present had heard anything about "Obeah" or its professors.
"I thought not," mused my grandfather. "Well, you won't enter into the interest of my story unless I give you some explanation beforehand of this remarkable negro superstition. The Africans indulge in a sort of Arimanic philosophy, and conceive that the world is under the dominion of a demon, whose destructive tastes must be propitiated by offerings and prayers, much as the Eumenides were wont to be appeased by euphemistic titles and worship. This demon, whose name is 'Obeah' or 'Obi'—the latter spelling is, I assume, the more correct—exhibits his malignity chiefly in bewitching his unfortunate victim, who pines away under this fiendish influence and miserably dies, unless Obeah's wrath be turned aside by the intervention and mediation of one of his inspired priests and prophets. These 'mediums' are called 'Obeah-men' and their functions are not confined, by any means, to the merciful interference between the demon and his victim to which I have just alluded. These idle dreamers are not unfrequently employed by revengeful negroes to 'bewitch' some enemy; and, such is the superstitious dread of, and belief in, the communicated power of the Obeah priest, that the person bewitched wastes away and dies, as I have often seen, sometimes from credulous fear, and sometimes from secret poisoning. The only English equivalent superstition is, I fancy, what country folks call the 'evil-eye.' And the effects of Obeah influence are very similar to those which have occasionally been noticed in people supposed to be 'bewitched' in this country. Of course, where this parallel can be drawn, we must understand that the person influenced is merely affected by credulous dread, and not by secret foul-play. The juggling Obeah-prophet is nothing without his professional apparatus, and whenever his aid, propitiatory or offensive, is invoked, he is careful to present himself in as strikingly hideous an exterior as can be produced by paint, feathers, and grease in various combinations. When he has disfigured himself