listen to me.

"You do talk such nonsense, Mechie," she cried, "there's never any comfort in listening to you! and you expect me to be cheered and encouraged by mere surmises of your own. How can you answer for their being no dangers at night on these frightful wild flats? Doesn't the country swarm with snakes and poisonous reptiles—"

"Which only come out during the hottest parts of the day," I interposed.

"Well, there are plenty of other horrors which principally wander about at night," persisted Lotty, impatiently—"tigers for instance. Oh! I didn't think of that before. How dreadful!" and bursting into a flood of tears, she suddenly threw herself down amidst the heath, declaring she was too much fatigued and frightened to walk a step farther.

"But, Lotty, tigers never come so far away from their native jungles," I argued, "so please come on, there's a dear, good Lotty."

"There you go again," sobbed the incorrigible girl, "asserting things of which you know nothing. No tigers near a town! Why there may be one within a few yards of us now, for anything you or I know to the contrary."

"Well, then, I am sure we had better run on," I urged.

"Yes, and then he would jump at us!" replied Charlotte, looking round with a scared expression.

I tried to soothe her, saying that during all the many years we had lived at the Cape such a thing had not been heard of as a tiger visiting this part of the country.

"Not heard of!" repeated Charlotte, scornfully; "as if hundreds of things do not occur every day which you neither know nor hear of. A nice comforter you are, to be sure, Mechie!"

"Well, but, Charlotte, what is it you propose doing? Sitting there all night?" A feeling of impatience was again rising within me.

"I shall sit here certainly until some one has the humanity to come and look for us," she answered in a determined tone.

"Oh, do reflect, Charlotte, on what you are doing!" I pleaded; "do consider that poor auntie, and uncle too, will have become very anxious if not frightened about us before thinking it necessary to seek us, and—"

"And I only hope they will not go on much longer without getting frightened about us," interrupted Charlotte. "Oh how thankful I should feel to see uncle coming this way! I am sure all their united fears of a week wouldn't amount to mine at this moment."

I was excessively disconcerted by this obstinate fit of Charlotte's. Up to the present time I had no doubt that uncle and aunt believed us still in the garden, or the former would long ago have come to seek us, and my great anxiety was to return before they had discovered our absence and become apprehensive of our safety.

"If you are resolved to remain there, Charlotte," I exclaimed, "I cannot of course prevent you—I can't move you against your will—but you cannot expect me to second such a folly, nor will I. I shall leave you at once and try to find my way back, and then uncle will come and bring you home if I succeed in reaching it myself."

"You will do nothing of the kind," cried Charlotte, passionately. "If you dare, Mechie, I will never forgive you. How can you think of anything so wicked? I tell you I am tired to death and frightened to death, and quite unable to walk a step farther. If we stay here, they will be able to find us, but if—"

Charlotte stopped abruptly, for a rustling in the bushes a little distance on our right caused even my heart to bound with terror. We both strained our eyes in the direction of the sound.

"Look there! what's that? Oh, what's that?" gasped Lotty, pointing to a dark spot under a bush.

"Where? what?" I panted out, scarce able to breathe.

"There! don't you see it," she continued in a shuddering whisper and grasping my arm convulsively, "lying down there, crouching?"

I did see it, and felt more terrified than I had ever been in my life before. I saw the dark form of some large animal; and now it was partly raising itself, and gazing at us with great glittering eyes, distinguishable even in the gloom.

"I don't know! come on! oh, come on! quick! quick!" I exclaimed under my voice.

Charlotte, springing up instantaneously, caught my hand and tore away, dragging me after her. But one feeling guided us—to fly from the monster, whatever it was, regardless alike of impediments or course. Having run a considerable distance, suddenly, to our unbounded joy, we found ourselves opposite the very gate leading into the field we had before passed through. Scrambling over it, we now stood a minute leaning against the bars, breathless and panting, to see if we were pursued.

At this part of the Flats there was a large space free of bushes and underwood, and consisting only of sandy turf and innumerable small flowers. Nothing following us was visible as yet, but Lotty suggested the probability of its stealing round through the underwood; therefore we once more grasped each other's hand, and ran for our lives down the field to the bridge. Here we halted, for an obstacle presented itself to our proceeding which we had as little anticipated as any of the foregoing. Happily, we could clearly perceive over the open field that no animal of any kind was in pursuit. All was thus far safe, and requesting Charlotte to join me in heart in thanking the Almighty for having preserved us through we knew not what of peril, we set to work to surmount this last difficulty, namely, crossing the plank over the brook. A thick belt or line of low trees skirted the bank on the eastern side of the river, as this stream was called, and their shade, in conjunction with the fading daylight, so obscured the little rustic bridge as to render the walking across a very critical if not hazardous undertaking. The water was not deep, certainly, but the height from the plank to the bed was sufficiently great to cause us serious injury, perhaps, were we to miss our footing and fall. "What are we to do now?" I said, after contemplating the depth and darkness of the way with a thoroughly perplexed, but, I must confess, a rather amused, feeling. We were so near home now that my anxiety about aunt and uncle was considerably allayed, and our present position had, in my opinion, something irresistibly comical in it.

"I see nothing to laugh at," exclaimed Charlotte, pettishly, detecting those signs of merriment in my voice; "it's the most provoking thing in the world, I think. There seems no end of our troubles this evening! I am sure, long as I live, I shall never forget this odious walk!"

"We can't do better, both of us, than remember it," I answered; "for my part, I shall always strive to keep in mind the lesson it has taught me—not again under any circumstances, however pressing, to allow myself to disregard the voice of dear uncle or aunt, let it be on the most apparently trifling matters. Witness what our disobedience has cost us this evening! If we had attended to uncle's warning not to leave the garden, what an amount of fatigue, distress and terror it would have saved us!"

"There! don't waste time talking and lecturing, Mechie; what good will that do now?" cried Charlotte, impatiently. "How are we to get over this pitfall of a bridge now that it is so dark? That's the thing to be considered at present."

Charlotte stepped close to the plank, and going down upon her knees partly dragged herself and partly crawled over in safety to the opposite side, then springing up, cried out triumphantly, "There, Miss Mechie, what do you say to that? here I am, you see!"

Adopting the same mode of