"but at all evints you needn't ax me, for I won't tell you."

"What kind of an answer is that to give me? Do you forget that I am your father ?"

"I wish I could; for indeed I am sorry you are."

"Oh, you know," observed Nelly, "she was always a dutiful girl-always a quiet good crathur. Why, you onbiddable sthrap, what kind of an answer is that to give to your father ?"

Ever since their stroll that morning, Sarah's eyes had been turned from time to time upon her stepmother with flash after flash of burning indignation, and now that she ad. dressed her, she said—

"Woman, you don't know how I scorn you! Oh, you mane an' wicked wretch, had you no pride durin' all your life! It's but a short time you an' I will be undher the same roof together-an' so far as I am consarned, I'll not stoop ever to bandy abuse or ill tongue with you again. I know only one other person that is worse an' meaner still than you are-an' there, I am sorry to say, he stands in the shape of my father."

She walked out of the cabin with a flushed cheek, and a step that was full of disdain and a kind of natural pride that might almost be termed dignity. Both felt rebuked; and Nelly, whose face got blanched and pale at Sarah's words, now turned upon the Prophet with a scowl.

"Would it be possible," said she, "that you'd dare to let out anything to that madcap ?"

"Now," said he, "that the coast is clear, I desire you to answer me a question that I'll put to you-an' mark my words-by all that's above us, an' undher us, an' about us, if you don't spake thruth, I'll be apt to make short work of it."

"What is it?" she inquired, looking at him with cool and collected resentment, and an eye that was perfectly fearless.

"There was a Tobaccy-box about this house, or in this house; do you know anything about it?"

"A tobaccy-box-is it?"
"Ay, a tobaccy-box."

"Well, an' what about it? What do you want wid it? An ould rusty Tobaccy-box; musha, is that what's throublin' you this mornin' ?"

"Come," said he, darkening," I'll have no humbuggin'-answer me at wanst. Do you know anything about

it ?"

"Is it about your ould rusty Tobaccy-box? Arrah what 'ud I know about it? What the sorra would a man like you do wid a Tobaccy-box that doesn't ever smoke? Is it mad or ravin' you are? Somehow I think the stroll you had wid that vagabond gipsy of a daughter of yours hasn't put you into the best of temper, nor her either. I hope you didn't act the villain on me ; for she looks at me, as if she could ait me widout salt. But, indeed, she's takin' on her own hand finely of late; she's gettin' too proud to answer me now when I ax her a question."

"Well, why don't you ax her as you ought?"

She was out all yestherday evenin', and when I said, "You idle sthrap, where wor you?' she wouldn't even think it worth her while to give me an answer, the vagabone."

"Do you give me one in the manetime. What about the box I want? Spake truth, if you regard your health.'

too.

"I know nothing about your box, an' I wish I could say as much of yourself. However, I won't long throuble you, that I can tell you-ay, an' her She needn't fear that I'll be long undher the same roof wid her. I know, any way I would'nt be safe; she'd only stick me in one of her fits, now that she's able to fight me."

"Now, Nelly," said the Prophet, deliberately shutting the door, "I know you to be a hardened woman, that has little fear in your heart. I think you know me, too, to be a hardened and a determined man. There, now, I have shut an' boulted the door, an' by Him that made me, you'll never lave this house, nor go out of that door a livin' woman, unless you tell me all you know about that Tobaccy-box. Now, you know my mind an' my coorse-act as you like now."

"Ha, ha, ha! Do you think to frighten me?" she asked, laughing derisively. "Me!-oh, how much you're mistaken, if you think so! Not that I don't b'lieve you to be dangerous, an' a man that one ought to fear; but I have no fear of you."

"Answer me quickly," he repliedand as he spoke, he seized the very

same knife from which she had so narrowly escaped in her conflict with Sarah" answer me, I say; an' mark, I have no raison to wish you alive."

And as he spoke, the glare in his eyes flashed and became fearful.

"Ay," said she, "there's your daughter's look, an' the same knife, too, that was near doin' for me wanst. Well, don't think that it's fear makes me say what I'm goin' to say; but that's the same knife; an' besides I dhramed last night that I was dressed in a black cloak-an' a black cloak, they say, is death! Ay, death!-an' I know I'm not fit to die, or to meet judgment, an' you know that, too. Now, then, tell me what it is you want wid that Box ?"

"No," he replied, sternly and imperatively, "I'll tell you nothing about it; but get it at wanst, before my passion rises higher an' deadlier."

"Well, then, mark me, I'm not afeard of you-but I have the box." "An' how did you come by it?" he asked.

"Sarah was lookin' for a cobweb to stop the blood where she cut me in our

fight the other day, an' it came tumblin' out of a cranny in the wall." "An' where is it now?"

"I'll get it for you," she replied; "but you must let me out first." "Why so?"

"Because it's not in the house.'
"An' where is it? Don't think

you'll escape me."

"It's in the thatch of the roof." The Prophet deliberately opened the door, and catching her by the shoulder, held her a prisoner, as it were, until she should make her words good. The roof was but low, and she knew the spot too well to make any mistake about it.

"Here," said she, "is the cross I scraped on the stone undher the place."

She put up her hand as she spoke, and searched the spot-but in vain. There certainly was the cross as she had marked it, and there was the slight excavation under the thatch where it had been; but as for the box itself, all search for it was fruitless-it had disappeared.