7 he Leather Plater. 311 



for a reply, but hurriedly left the parlour. This was the last time 

 he ever saw her as Annie Radford. 



She went straight up to her bedroom, where she had already 

 packed up a small trunk; wrote a hasty note to old Radford, which 

 she left upon the table, and in which she told him that she was 

 going up to London to get a situation as governess, and could not 

 trust herself to say good-by, but that he would soon hear from her 

 again, and then went down to the kitchen to wake up the farm 

 servant whom she had engaged to wait upon her. Poor Frank was 

 tossing uneasily on his feverish bed ; old Radford was snoring in 

 his ancient four-poster ; the whole house was still — and at ten she 

 silently stole out at the back door, accompanied by the lad who 

 carried her trunk and Nero, the Newfoundland dog, who never left 

 his favourite mistress's side. They took a short cut across the 

 fields into the lane which led up to the north road, about four miles 

 distant, and by the top of which one of the night coaches up to 

 London would pass about twelve o'clock. 



The night was still and fine, the moon was riding high in the clear 

 blue heavens, and even the bleak cheerless tract round Holliwell 

 wore a mild and mellow aspect under the soft influence of her 

 silvery rays. But the wayward girl heeded not this. She felt a 

 choking sensation at her breast, her breath came quick, and her 

 heart throbbed as though it would burst from its confinement 3 but 

 she neither stopped nor turned till they came to the top of a little 

 hill on the farther edge of old Radford's farm, from which she 

 must take her last look at the old Lodge, or see it no more. Here 

 she stopped, and turning round, gazed earnestly for some minutes 

 on the wide open prospect which lay stretched out below her. 

 Every distant object Was nearly as visible as by day, and as her eye 

 wandered vacantly over the little village which now lay so quietly 

 at her feet, the memories of her early childhood rushed with full 

 force across her mind. But there was one well-known spot endeared 

 to her by a thousand fond recollections, upon which her dimmed 

 eyes rested longer than upon any other 3 it was the old farm Lodge, 

 where the only true friends she had ever possessed in this world 



