me as her kinsman from Australia, and provide a nice little supper for me? Why- But I need not pursue the subject further. If it's not out of your way, doctor, perhaps you won't mind setting me down at Trevenna Cottage, and then'- He paused. And then, what? he asked himself. Was he in a land of witchcraft, or where was he? If he had been puzzled and mystified before, he was a hundredfold more | puzzled and mystified now.

'I will gladly set you down at Trevenna Cottage,' answered the doctor as he whipped up the mare. A horrible misgiving was beginning to take possession of him. He had not forgotten the hints and suggestions of foul-play thrown out by Mr Muncaster. Other little things he had not forgotten which he had noted in his memory at different times. What if there should be some foundation of truth behind all these ugly surmises! The thought turned him sick.

Turning to his companion a little abruptly, he said: Pardon me, sir; but if you are the person you represent yourself as being, you can hardly fail to remember the contents of the will you made previously to leaving England. Would you mind enlightening me as to the nature of one or two of its clauses?'

'Not at all, since we seem to be altogether at cross-purposes. My will contained but one clause. By it I bequeathed to my cousin, Lucius Avory, as my nearest living relative, the proceeds of a policy of insurance on my life for five thousand pounds. Nothing could be more simple.'

It was some moments before the doctor could find his voice, and when he did, it trembled with an emotion he could not control. If what you say be true, sir-and I dare not doubt that it is then it becomes my duty to inform you that you have been made the victim of one of the vilest frauds it ever entered the heart of a wicked man to conceive and carry out. Tomorrow-Wednesday-at noon, Captain Avory is due at the Stork Insurance Company's office in London, there to be paid a cheque for five thousand pounds, the same being the amount due on a policy of insurance bequeathed him by his cousin, the late Edward Saverne, who died on the 12th of last month, and was buried at Boscombe Regis.'

When the two men reached Trevenna Cottage, they alighted. As they walked up the garden pathway, they noticed that there was not a light to be seen anywhere. Nevertheless, Mr Saverne knocked loudly and tugged vigorously at the bell. But there came no response, as indeed, somehow, he hardly expected there would. Again and again the summons was repeated, but with no better effect. The darkness and silence remained unbroken. At length the two men turned away without a word, weary and sad at heart.

Wednesday was here, and the City clocks, with more or less of unanimity, had just proclaimed the hour of noon, when Captain Avory, immaculate in French gray gloves and snowy gaiters, and with a flower in his button-hole, jauntily ascended the steps of the Stork Insurance office, and requested the liveried janitor who

opened the swing-doors for him to direct him to Mr Muncaster's room. Whatever inward misgivings may have possessed him, they betrayed nothing of themselves on the surface. If his eyes were not smiling, his lips certainly were, and his sharp white teeth gleamed through the rift in his moustache. He was carelessly humming a little air under his breath as the first_janitor passed him on to the second, who finally ushered him into Mr Muncaster's room.

Mr Muncaster looked up, nodded, and smiled as his visitor entered. 'Good-morning, Captain Avory-glad to see you,' he said. 'There's nothing like punctuality in these matters. We are quite ready for you, I am happy to say. Pray, take a chair for one moment.' Then he resumed his writing.

Captain Avory sat down as requested; but somehow the smile died away on his lips, and he ceased to warble under his breath. Mr Muncaster's greeting might be a pleasant one, but there was a cold, green glitter in his eyes which made the captain shiver, and seemed to bode but little good.

But not much time was allowed him for thought of any kind. Mr Muncaster's letter was quickly finished and handed to the messenger who answered his summons. As soon as the man was gone, he took up a tube, one of several which hung close to his chair, and after blowing through it, he put the mouthpiece to his ear. 'Yes, sir,' came the answer in tones hollow enough to have done credit to a transpontine ghost. Placing the mouthpiece to his lips this time, Mr Muncaster said: "Tell Davies that Captain Avory is here, and let me know at once whether everything is in readiness.' Only a few seconds had he to wait for the response. 'Everything is in readiness, sir.' Mr Muncaster nodded and smiled to himself.

Meanwhile, Captain Avory, whose hands were perspiring most uncomfortably for so cool a morning, had slowly pulled off his French gray gloves. No doubt his signature would be required presently to some document or other, and it was just as well to be in readiness.

'And now, captain, I am at your service,' said Mr Muncaster pleasantly. "Will you kindly step this way?'

For a moment he hesitated and glanced around. 'Everything is in readiness for what or whom?' he asked himself. Why, to pay me over the cheque for five thousand, of course,' was his own answer to his own question. And yet, strange to say, he felt very much like a fly which was deliberately walking into a spider's web, half suspecting the while the doom that lay in wait for it.

Mr Muncaster, holding open an inner door, was looking at him with a peculiar smile. He hesitated no longer, but passed through the door, which closed at once behind him. Together the two men traversed the corridor beyond, at the end of which were two more silent swingdoors, where stood two men, one in livery and the other in plain clothes; and so they passed forward into another large empty room.

'Just a single moment,' said Mr Muncaster with uplifted finger, and with that he strode forward, and opening the door of a further room, peeped in.

Journal

Captain Avory, holding his hat in his hand, came to a halt with military precision in the middle of the floor. His heart was thumping like a steam-hammer, and his lips were strangely parched and feverish. He moistened them with his tongue, then he sniffed at the flower in his button-hole, and then he threw up his head with an air of defiance.

Mr Muncaster beckoned to him with an ominous finger. 'If you please, my dear sirif you please,' he said in his most dulcet tones. Captain Avory squared his shoulders, gave a loud 'Hem!' and marched forward as stiffly as if he were going on parade. He heard the door close behind him, and was somehow dimly conscious that another man, in addition to Mr Muncaster, had followed him into the room. And then he looked round. He had no need to take a second look; he saw it all at a glance. He was trapped-brought to bay-lost-ruined! Fronting him sat three people, any one of whom, sitting in that place and on that occasion, would have been to him as an infallible symbol of doom. First of all, there was good, simple-hearted Dr Mayfield, the man whom he had hoodwinked and bamboozled as easily as he might have done a child, who was now gazing at him through his gold-rimmed spectacles more in sorrow than in anger, and with a tear lurking somewhere in the corner of his eye. Next to him, all in black, sat Mrs Preedy, as grim, rigid, and angular as a monumental effigy; in her eyes shone no moisture of pity, but rather a cold stony glare, pierced through by one venomous spark of hatred. Lastly, came a face far more terrible to him than the others that of his much-wronged cousin. By what strange miracle was he here! He was looking straight at him, with eyes that were stern indeed, but which yet had a sort of sad surprised questioning look in them, as though they were asking: Can this be the man whom I trusted and treated as a brother!'

He could bear no more. He gave a great gasp, made a clutch at his heart, and staggered back like a drunken man towards the door, those three accusing faces still following him with their eyes. Suddenly, a strong hand, which seemed at once to support and to hold him, was thrust under his arm, and a voice said in his ear: 'Captain Avory, you must consider yourself my prisoner. I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of'

But Captain Avory heard no more; for the only time in his life, he had fainted. At this point he may well pass from our sight for

Mrs Avory disappeared as completely as though. no such person had ever been in existence. She could scarcely fail to read in the newspapers the account of her husband's arrest and examination; and not knowing how far the law might choose to take cognisance of her share in the matter, she probably decided that the wisest thing she could do would be to drop out of sight as quietly and unobtrusively as possible.

Bosy Groote was another individual who was seen no more in those parts which had known him best; while Hoogies, it is pleasant to relate, has long ago been levelled to the ground.

Mr Saverne was a man who occasionally did things which other people would rarely think of doing. He sought out little Florrie Sadgrove, and finding her to be a clever and interesting child, he caused her to be educated at his expense, and later on, he set her fairly on her way in life. It is a good thing to know that she has not failed to do credit to his generosity.

Nature

ELVES, PIXIES, AND WITCHES. THERE is a small blue lake at the foot of some of the Welsh mountains which the ancient inhabitants, descended from the old Druidical school, suppose to be the abode of the fairies. Those old Britons, driven out from their English homes by the invading Romans, and seeking shelter and safety among the Welsh and Cornish fastnesses, held many superstitious fancies. They saw tokens and charms in all nature, and believed as truly in good and bad spirits, in mischievous sprites and pixies, in witches and wizards, and the machinations of the Evil One, as they did in their law-giving Druids, their vates, and their legend-singing bards. was their book of the unknown, behind whose unturned pages lurked things beyond their simple comprehension. A brave and fearless nation to foes that they could face openly, yet were they the veriest cowards before the slightest and most harmless thing in nature that they, in their Thus, their ignorance, failed to account for. pixies and their sprites visited many houses; and in nearly every lane and hedgerow had their haunts, and under many of the wide-spreading trees did they dance their midnight dance and hold their fairy revels. They visited the milkpails and upset their contents, and they turned the cream, and prevented its churning into butter. They rode the horses left in the fields at night until they half killed them, and they used for these mad rides the hairs pulled from the unfortunate animals' necks or tails, twisted into stirrups to rest their tiny feet in. They led astray those people whom they found abroad after nightfall; and the only remedy to secure safety from their pranks was to turn some article of clothing upon the body. They stole or changed children who had been left in their cradles, and they invariably appeared dressed in rags.

But these were pixies of the mischievous order; there were others -the good and industrious -who worked at the looms all night and did

the washing for any family which they happened to take a fancy to, or they busied themselves by thrashing the corn in the barns; but one and all of this hard-working sort were ragged and dirty; and the mortals to whom they rendered such valuable assistance, upon finding out to whom they were indebted, in gratitude supplied them with gay new clothes; and the pixies in seeming delight donned these garments, and departed, singing as they went

Now the pixies' work is done,

We take our clothes and off we run.

other into a little boy. Young Robinson went on to state that the witch forced him to remain where he was, and even offered him money to keep silence; but her money he refused; and then immediately the little boy was transformed into a white horse, and young Robinson was placed in front of the witch upon its back, and it galloped off to a place in the forest known as the spot where the witches' Sabbath' was celebrated. At this place, about fifty witches were assembled ; and a young woman presented Robinson with a steak set upon a golden dish; but he was unable to eat it on account of the taste, which was quite disgusting. Subsequently he found himself in a

for ever afterwards ceased.

So much for the pranks of the pixies. The witches were quite another kind of thing; and if offended, would cast an 'evil eye' upon the cattle or the family of the offending one. In that case the cattle died, and the family became sick, and sometimes died also. Thus, to guard against the evil that one witch worked, another was propitiated, and gave a counter-charm, that alleviated, or entirely removed the ills worked by her sister-witch. Some witches assumed the forms of dogs, hares, and cats, as in the wellknown legend of Pendle Forest, in consequence of which tale as told by the Robinsons, eighteen persons were tried at Lancaster, and seventeen of these unfortunate creatures were found guilty of witchcraft, and six out of that number forfeited their lives upon the scaffold.

"The Lancashire Witches,' still a standing toast of the county, given with brimming glasses, leads some of us to forget for a time the bonnie girls to whom the term applies in these our days, and to allow our thoughts to wander far back into the past, when, in place of the mills and factories, the land was covered with giant trees, gorse, and bracken, and the deer and other wild animals roved at will in their picturesquely beautiful domain, wherein the foot of man seldom trod. And musing of those bygone days when Pendle was one of the largest forests of our isle, we forget the handsome lasses of the county, and muse on the legend of the forest wherein the Irwell first finds its source.

Do you, my readers, know how the tales of the wood-cutters were credited by a superstitious nation ?-how, in a violent storm in Pendle Forest, Robinson said that he saw by the flashing of the lightning the terrible witch of the forest perched upon a high crag, and that he felt her cat rubbing itself against his legs, and that the cat expressed itself in good English, and informed him that the witch would meet him at Malkin Tower? Then the legend proceeds to tell that young Robinson went into the forest the night before his father's journey, and that he saw two beautiful greyhounds, with collars of gold about their necks; and while he admired the dogs, a hare came upon the scene, and he, seeing so good an opportunity for a hunt, tried to urge on the dogs, and even struck them to compel them to do his bidding; but in spite of all his endeavours, the dogs remained passive; and while he looked in wonder at them, one was suddenly transformed into the witch of the forest, and the

engaged pulling ropes suspended from the ceiling, by which the choicest and richest articles of food descended. Then a great caldron was procured, and the witches performed and used various incantations around it; during which ceremony Robinson managed to escape, and was pursued by the whole troop of witches.

One

Robinson became ill, and raved for a whole The tale runs, that after his adventure, young week about witches; whereupon, the tale of his adventures getting wind, eighteen poor women were tried for the offence of witchcraft. of the unfortunate creatures was so much frightened, that she imagined she was actually a witch, and is said to have made certain confessions before her death relative to her dealings with the Evil One.

Still, though all our island teemed with the tales of the supernatural, the most credited and renowned tales of elves, pixies, sprites, witches, and the like appear to have had their origin along the western parts of our island, and more particularly in Wales. Some historians, however, ascribe our great poet Shakspeare's ideas concerning fairy elves to have originated in the Isle of Wight, where many tales of these little creatures' doings were current at the time of his supposed visit to that garden of England. But it is not to be wondered at that the Welsh should hold many superstitious fancies. Ancient Britons as they were, they believed implicitly in the Druidical egg inclosed in gold hung about the necks of their priests. Pliny tells us that this egg was the distinguishing badge of the Druids, that it was of the size of an apple, that its shell was a cartilaginous incrustation full of little cavities like those upon the arms of the polypus. The origin is said to have been derived from serpents, a number of whom entwined themselves together, and whose hissing sent up the egg into the air, where it was caught ere falling to the ground. The person who caught the substance used a clean white linen cloth for the purpose, and was mounted upon a very fleet horse; and having secured his prize, he galloped off at headlong speed, pursued by the angry serpents, which stayed not their chase until they reached running water. If the egg was genuine, it was incased in gold, and would then swim against the stream. The power of the egg was considered miraculous, and those who wore it were insured against almost every known evil. The belief in it was certainly sincere, for the great Druidical temples of Avebury, Stonehenge, and of Carnac in Brittany, together with many others, were dedicated to the worship of the sun and the serpent.

Journal

But the tales that were the most pleasant were those concerning the pranks or kindly actions of the little people, and it is to these that the following legend relates. The tale that we now have to do with is, of course, only a fairy tale relating to a family of good pixies who dwelt beyond a Welsh lake under the shadow of lofty hills-Avernus, as the Mabinogi, or fables of the Welsh, call these little sprites. Well! On the first day of May, many, many years ago, after the poor Britons had been compelled to give up the hills and valleys, the woodlands and meadow-land, the rivers and streams, of dear old England, and hurry for shelter to the more secure fastnesses of Wales, away from their Roman invaders, there was a door in the rocks that opened close down to the water. This door gave access to the fairy domain; and if any curious mortal wished to penetrate the secrets of this abode of the little folls, he must cross the water on this first day of May, and enter the door, where he would find a fairy page in attendance, who evinced his readiness to conduct the visitor to the favourite haunt of the fairy queen and her court. Following the page, the visitor observed winding passages spread out in every direction from a common centre. These were carpeted with the softest mosses, some of a bright emerald green colour, others of a rich brown and yellowish tint. The feet of the visitor sank with noiseless tread upon this velvet-like carpet, which was softer and thicker than the richest velvetpile of our day. Traversing one of those passages, the fairy page paused, and tapped with a small wand upon what looked to the visitor to be a massive wall of flinty rock. Once he tapped, and paused to listen; then again he gave his summons, and waited for the same length of time; then again he repeated his knocking. At this, his third summons, the rock opened in the shape of a door, which swung open upon invisible hinges; and the page immediately stepped forward into the enchanted precincts, and beckoned to his guest to follow him, which the mortal immediately did, when the door was closed behind him. Thus they found themselves in a beautiful passage or corridor, the roof of which was covered with magnificent stalactites of all shapes and sizes, that glittered and sparkled with all the hues of a rainbow, and seemed to emit sparks and flashes of light as they were passed. As the visitor followed his guide through this winding passage, he caught glimpses of numberless other passages diverging from it. Each and all were decorated with flashing stalactites of quaint and artistic forms. The floors of some were strewn with fine sparkling sand; while others were paved with polished black, white, or speckled marbles, or shining spar. Diverging at length into one of these, the visitor stood in awestruck admiration at the wonders displayed before him; for there, in wild profuse confusion, lay bright violet amethysts scattered promiscuously over beds of emeralds, looking like enormous violets blossoming amongst a wealth of bright green leaves. Farther on were sapphires, again amongst masses of emeralds, their pale-blue colour representing the pretty modest little pimpernel.

Turning to the other side, the visitor beheld corresponding beds of gems, with masses of

emeralds for the foundation; but with flowers represented by the ruby and garnet, in place of geranium and other stars of earth of a scarlet or pinkish hue. Still further on the diamond flashed out its light like so many glow-worms half-hidden amongst the grass and leaves; while further still, the yellowish tints of the amber clearly showed itself like vast beds of marigolds, or the yellow cup-flowers that children call orange and lemon. Then the fairy flower-garden ended, and the seagarden commenced; bright-red, yellow, brown, or green seaweeds making themselves conspicuous, studded with sprays of red, pink, and white coral. Then further on pearls of all sizes, sorts, and shapes hung in bushes and sea-trees, looking like the snowball bushes of our gardens. Amongst all this fairy scene rose trickling, sparkling fountains; and behind the boughs of the sea-plants peeped grottos and caves formed of pearl and bright-coloured shells.

At length a rippling lake appeared in view, with a fairy skiff moored thereon, in waiting for the visitor. Entering this frail little craft, it was pushed out from shore into the dancing waves of the lake, over which it skimmed lightly, until its keel grated upon the shining sands of an island. On this island was the home and castle of the Tylwyth Teg or Fair Family; and on the shore, for the purpose of welcoming a mortal visitor, stood the fairy queen with all the members of her court. The beautiful little lady with all her train advanced to welcome the stranger, who was struck with such marvellous beauty, which was so far beyond mortal conception. The visitor in amazement landed, and the queen with all her courteous subjects commenced to show him all the beauties of their fairy domain. They first led him through wonderful gardens, where grew the finest and rarest of flowers, some of which they plucked and presented to him. The wonderful perfume of some of these odorous flowers almost intoxicated the visitor; observing which, the fairy company hastened to lead him away from their flower to their fruit gardens, where he regaled himself with the sweetest and most luscious fruits imaginable. Subsequent to this the little people entertained him with exquisite music and foretold things that would happen in the future.

This mortal was allowed to help himself to anything he saw, but was warned that evil would befall him if he ventured to carry any of the enchanted things away. And thus it once happened that one of the visitors of the Tylwyth Teg secreted one of the fairy flowers to carry away with him. The fairies, who knew all about it, let him depart, showing him every courtesy until they closed their doors after him. When he reached mortal ground the flower had disappeared, and he had lost his senses. Never after this disobedience to their commands did the Fair Family open their grounds to mortals. Soft sweet music is occasionally heard proceeding from the enchanted spot in sweet summer mornings, when the birds are twittering and calling to each other to awake; or on some dewy night when the stars are brightly twinkling in the sky, waiting to welcome their queen-the Silver Moon-but the Fair Family themselves never appear.

It is said that the inhabitants of that part of the country tried to do away with the fairies and their enchanted home, thinking no good came of