Part 50 (2/2)

For one minute she paused, struck by the peculiar sweet and sickly odour of a large-leaved herb which she had crushed, and adnorance of the fact that it was the deadly poisonous henbane, and then all at once she missed Grip

”Oh, how tiresome!” she cried excitedly; and she called hiull or two floated about and uttered their querulous calls, otherwise the silence was profound, and, though she swept the great curved sides of the hollohose end seereen slope toward her, but sheer scarped and projecting cliff toward the sea, there was not soupon her, she hurried along towards the cliff, thinking of what Dadd had said, and picturing in hersoht over the cliff, she went on alh, to call from time to time

It was intensely hot in that hollow, for the sea breeze was completely shut off, but she did not pause, and rapidly neared the cliff now, her dread increasing, as she wondered whether Ra under the cliff to find the poor dog's body, so that she ht bury it up in the fir-wood behind the house, in a particular spot close to where she had so often sat

No sign of Grip: no sound She called again, but there was no cheery bark in response, and with her despondent feeling on the increase, she began to clireat clusters of blackberries, whose roots were fast in the stones, and the fruit looking like bunches of black grapes; past glistening white mushrooms, better than any she had yet seen, but they did not attract her; and at last she had cli up and up to the horizon, and about a couple ofslowly along the shore

”I wonder where thatfor the e that all was! Could it really have been a dreaone and told his captain, and they would have come and searched the cellar, and there would have been sad trouble”

She turned her eyes froreen slopes around, and then all at once she uttered a cry of joy as she could sight, on the highest slope right at the end of the valley, a white speck which suddenly appeared out of the earth, and then stood out clear on the green turf, and seeain

It was quite half a an to descend diagonally into the hollow, the tears in her eyes, but a s,” she cried merrily, ”hoill punish you!” and she stooped and picked a couple ofa scrap of a country ditty in a pretty bird-like voice as she caers

By degrees she passed the end of the hollow, leaving all the blackberries behind, and now, only pausing to pick a an to ascend the slope tohere she had seen the dog

”It is getting nearer the edge of the cliff,” she said; ”but it slopes up, and not down Ah, I see you, sir Co had suddenly ht as it were out of the grassy slope, to stand barking loudly for a few ain

”Oh, how tireso would not coone down one of the old stone pits, and quite prepared to stand at last gazing into a hole which inclined rapidly into the hillside, but was as usual provided with rough stones placed step-wise, and leading the way into darkness beneath a fern-fringed arch, while the whole place was al braht to herself, as her eyes wandered about the sides of the pit, and brightened at the sight of the abundant clusters of blackberries, finer and riper than any she had yet secured

”I wish I was not so frightened of these places,” she said to herself

”Why, I could fill a basket here, and there can't be anything toout the stone”

A sudden burst of barking took her attention to the dog, who caht to her feet, looked at her with his great intelligent eyes, and, before she could stop hi, and there was a sound which she kneas caused by hisat the side in broken frag in thin layers, and used in the neighbourhood instead of tiles

”Oh, Grip, Grip! And you know you can't get at hi over the rugged steps, gazing down into the darkness beneath the ferns, when, in a faint, s her nearly drop her basket as she started away from the pit

The hail was followed by a sharp burst of barking, and the dog caain before once

Slowly, and with her eyes dilated and strained, the girl crept back step by step, as she withstood her desire to run away, for all at once the thought had come that perhaps some shepherd or labourer had fallen down to the botto

She had heard of such things, and it would be very terrible, but she o for help

In this spirit she once more reached the entrance to the old quarry, and peered down, listening to the worrying soundone piece of stone over another, every now and then giving a short, snapping bark

”Ahoy!” cah the girl, bringing with it a glow of courage