little term of absence from her home at Shaws, she grew daily more sedate i

nown, even to the astute Bates, was that the most of such eatables were laboriously carried over close upon four miles of downland by the Lady Desdemona, for ultimate storage in her cave, where, a little reluctant

less and less keen upon his company. Latterly, in fact, she came as near as so courtly a creature could to sending him about his business flatly, and she formed a habit of

red Finn as much as ever; she liked him well, and had no shadow of a reason for mistrusting him. But she had her own weird to dree; a

instincts the which she must obey with or without understanding, there was the desire to store up food, and to preserve intact her sole command of the privacy of her cave. If Finn had been human, he would h

ared from Shaws, and Finn, to the Master's sur

ttitude throughout had been one of really unaccountable chilliness and reserve. They had drunk together-the cold nectar of a prehistoric dew-pond that lay within a hundred yards of the cave-and Desdemona had turned away curtly and hurried back to the cav

er rank, actually snatched away the rabbit, and with never a "Thank you," or a "By your leave," carried it right inside the cave, dropping it there and returning to bar the entrance, with a look in her red-hawed eyes and a lift of her golden flews which, if not actual

vaguely surmising that in his discomfort there must be something of retribution for Desdemona. Had he but known it, he had a long line of human precedents in th