what they had done. At length, the visitors left, the squire announcing, after another survey of the sick cattle in the yard, that he should have them slaughtered at once, adding that, if the others sickened, they, too, were to be killed without delay! Mother and son looked wildly at each other, the ruin they had so often talked about now stared them in the face. Granny, also, was aware of it, if moanings betokened anything, though her shrunken lips were closed, and her black eyes were kept covered with the closed lids. Matty never moved from her crouching position on the hearth, watching the movements of others with large terrified eyes, and letting the kitten, which had crept out from its hiding, gambol about her unheeded. Joseph stood stock-still in the yard, gazing dumfoundered at the doomed cattle.

A few words will suffice for the rest. Within a week only one cow was left out of the whole seven, and the disease broke out at several other places in the neighbourhood. The localities were all somewhat distant, and it could hardly be positively alleged that they had derived it from Leatham's stock; still, on the news of granny's attempted revenge leaking out (which it did, though the magistrates took no action), public feeling rose so high, that the family must have left the district, even if their ruin had been less complete. Another tenant was found for the farm, and granny, who still lingered, though her mind had wholly gone, was removed into an almshouse at an adjoining village. Mark, who had forfeited every remaining chance he had of wedding Ellen Astbury, took service in another part of the country. When granny dies, he, his mother, and Matty will emigrate to America, where some of their friends are settled. Joseph is serving-man at the old farm under the new master, and talks most bitterly of granny.