Part 49 (1/2)

Just then she heard Grip again barking very faintly

”Stupid dog!” she said to herself, with a little laugh ”He has followed a rabbit to its hole If he would only catch a few more, how useful they would be!”

Then shefor a patch of heath, and she was still watching it when, sorowling, and pausing from time to ti down and pulling his ears, as he thrust his head into her lap ”Afraid of a fox! Was it a fox's hole, then, and not a rabbit's, Grip?”

The dog growled and barked

”Poor old fellow, then Where is it, then?”

The dog leaped up, barked, and ran a few yards, to stop, look back at her, and bark again

”No, no, Grip; I don't want to see,” she said; and she began idly to pick up scraps of wild thy rushes toward the slope of the great cliff

”No, sir,” she said, shaking her finger at hi to be led to one of your discoveries, to see nothing for rily, and not until she spoke sharply did he obey, and followed her unwillingly up the slope and then down into a hollow that looked as if at one tilacier

The dog tried again to lead her away toward the sea, but she was inexorable; and so he followed her along unwillingly, till, lon in the hollow, as she turned suddenly by a pile of great blocks of weather-worn and lichened stone, she came suddenly upon Dadd and Ram, the former flat on his back, with his hat dran over his eyes, the latter busy with his knife cutting a rough stick s his white teeth

”Quite well, Raen now, miss On'y a bit sore”

”You tumbled off the cliff, didn't you?”

”Off a bit of it,” said Ra ”Not far”

”But how foolish of you! Mrs Shackle said you ht have been killed”

”Yes, erous place?”

”Eh?” said Ra?”

”Yes, to run such a risk”

”I was--I was--”

Ra, with his mouth open

”Lookin' after a lost sheep,” carowl from under Jemmy Dadd's hat

”Oh! And did you find it?”

”Yes; he fun' it,” said the erous place