“One moment, Crystal; does Mr. Erle know?”
“No, of course not, he is a mere acquaintance; what should put that in your head, Fern?”
“Oh, nothing, it was only fancy,” returned the girl; she hardly knew why she had put the question; was it something in Erle’s manner that afternoon? He had asked her, a little anxiously, if Miss Davenport were going away again, and if she would be at home the following week. “For she had been such a runaway lately,” he had said with a slight laugh, “and I was thinking that it must be dull for you when she is away.” But Fern had assured him that Crystal had no intention of going away again, for she had no idea of the plot that Crystal and Miss Campion were hatching between them.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CRYSTAL’S STORY.
The path my father’s foot
Had trod me out (which suddenly broke off
What time he dropped the wallet of the flesh
And passed) alone I carried on, and set
My child-heart ’gainst the thorny underwood,
To reach the grassy shelter of the trees,