“But how,” inquired Eveline, “is it to be done?”

“You forget Philip Joy, madam,” said Prudence.

“I might have known better than to distrust your wiles and stratagems, you cunning girl,” said her mistress; “but have a care of thyself.  I sometimes feel much anxiety on thy account—­but I forbid this meeting with Master Spikeman.”

“An’ it be so,” answered the waiting-maid, pouting, “you may find some one else, Mistress Eveline, to tell you about the plots of the old dragon, who has us in his claws.”

“For shame, thou petulant thing! yet tell me now all thy design.”

“You tell me not all your thoughts about Master Miles, and why should I acquaint you with mine about Joe?” said Prudence, bursting into a laugh.

“There is some difference, methinks, between the cases—­have thy way though.  I have confidence in thee, Prudence, and believe thee as witty as pretty.  Thy own goodness and love for the soldier Joy shall stand by thee like guardian angels, to save from harm.  Yet like I not this tampering with anything that looks like evil.”

The girl knelt down by the side of her mistress, and taking the young lady’s hand, laid it on her heart.

“Thou feelest,” she said, “how it beats.  Dost understand what it says?”

“Methinks it repeats only, Philip, Philip, Philip,” said Eveline, smiling.

“Where one fillip belongs to him, a great many belong to thee,” answered the waiting-maid, affectionately.  “It will be time enough to let him have more when I am sure all his are mine.”

The young lady bent down, and, throwing her arms round the maiden’s neck, kissed her cheek.

“What have I done to deserve such affection?” she murmured.  “O, Prudence, thou art a treasure to me; but be cautious, be cautious, my girl.  Not for all the blessings which thy loving heart would heap upon me, would I have the least harm befall thee.”

A few days after, as the summer sun was setting, and his last rays lighting up the tops of the trees into a yellow sheen, and kindling into liquid gold the placid surface of Massachusetts Bay, a female figure was to be seen hovering on the margin of the wood in that neighborhood.  In consequence of the inequalities of the ground, and of some intervening bushes and trees, the collection of houses that lay along the shore of the bay was not visible from the spot where she was walking, nor was there a path to indicate that it was a place of any resort.  It seemed to be a spot well adapted to privacy.  No sound was to be heard, save the occasional tap of a woodpecker, or the whirr of the wings of a partridge, as, startled by the approach of the person, he suddenly rose into the air, or the songs of the robins, bidding farewell, in sweet and plaintive notes, to the disappearing sun.  The female walked on, stopping now and then to gather a wild flower, until she reached a spring which bubbled at the foot of an immense beech tree.  It ran