and came on. My only hope was that in his excitement he might forget to
notice where the grass terminated near the edge of the cliff, though this
could be easily felt by a careful walker: to make my own feeling more
distinct on this point I hastily bared my feet.'

The listeners moistened their lips, Ethelberta took breath, and then went
on to describe the scene that ensued, 'A dreadful variation on the game
of Blindman's buff,' being the words by which she characterized it.

Ethelberta's manner had become so impassioned at this point that the lips
of her audience parted, the children clung to their elders, and
Christopher could control himself no longer. He thrust aside the boughs,
and broke in upon the group.

'For Heaven's sake, Ethelberta,' he exclaimed with great excitement,
'where did you meet with such a terrible experience as that?'

The children shrieked, as if they thought that the interruption was in
some way the catastrophe of the events in course of narration. Every one
started up; the two young mechanics stared, and one of them inquired, in
return, 'What's the matter, friend?'

Christopher had not yet made reply when Ethelberta stepped from her
pedestal down upon the crackling carpet of deep leaves.

'Mr. Julian!' said she, in a serene voice, turning upon him eyes of such
a disputable stage of colour, between brown and grey, as would have
commended itself to a gallant duellist of the last century as a point on
which it was absolutely necessary to take some friend's life or other.
But the calmness was artificially done, and the astonishment that did not