hurt?"

"No, only dreadfully frightened. I was belated, and it came on dark,
and just as we turned into the path from the old road, that awful
beast, with a terrible shriek, sprang into the road before us, and was
about to leap upon me, when Barton sprang at him and drove him off. If
it had not been for him, I would have been torn in pieces."

"Barton?--was he with you? Thank God! oh, bless and thank God for
your escape! My child! my child! How awful it sounds! Come! come to my
room, and let me hold you, and hear it all!"

"Oh, mamma! what a weak and cowardly thing a woman is! I thought I was
so strong, and really courageous, and the thought of this thing makes
me tremble now."

They gained her mother's room, and Julia, seating herself at her
mother's feet, and resting her arms on her mother's lap, undertook to
tell her story.

"I cannot tell you how it all happened. Barton met me, and would come
along with me, and then he said strange things to me; and I answered
him back, and quarrelled with him, and--"

"What could he have said to you? Tell me all."

Julia began and told with great minuteness, and with much feeling, her
whole adventure. She explained that she really did not want Bart to
come with her, for that it would displease her father; and that when
he did, she thought he ought to know that he was not at liberty to be