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advisable. You are homeless now that Mrs. Willoughby has her cousin to travel with her."

A curious look shone in Helen's gray eyes for a moment.

"I can get another post as companion," she said quietly.

"But how ridiculous it would be. And I cannot offer you a home here, Helen. If you will stay a few weeks I shall be pleased. But I am so poor; my bad health is so expensive"

Helen's eyes swept the crowded room; the vases of flowers; the scent bottles; the fans; the screens and cushions and yellow-backed novels.

"Yes," she said.

"Does Sir Ralph hold back?" asked her sister.

There was a hint of defiance in Fielding's hushed tones.

"She is quite right," murmured her mistress feebly, "my nerves will not stand-"

A thought had struck Helen.

"Does she return alone?" she said. "I do wish you would not speak so abruptly, Helen. Fielding, my lavender salts."

Fielding handed the bottle to her mistress and answered Helen.

"I can't be spared to take and fetch her, miss, nor cook neither."

"She is perfectly safe," moaned Mrs. Hardy, "all this is so upsetting"Someone must go to the Rectory at once," said Helen.

"Fielding must not go," the peevish

A gleam of mirth lit the frank face voice grew energetic, "it is nearly time over by the window.

"No; he wants me to marry him now -at once."

"Then why-"

"Oh, I don't know," Helen shrugged her shoulders slightly, her short upper lip curled wilfully, "I won't be hurried," she said; "he's too masterful."

Upon the peevish remonstrances of Mrs. Hardy broke the immaculate Fielding.

"Please, ma'am, it's after five and Miss Penelope has not returned. She didn't come home to dinner neither."

Fielding spoke in hushed tones that reminded Helen irresistibly of a death chamber.

"Really, Fielding, I do not see why I should be troubled. She is at the Rectory

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"Does Miss Penelope always return to dinner?" broke in Helen's voice. "Yes, miss-"

"Then why wasn't your mistress told that she had not returned to-day?"

"I didn't want to trouble her, miss. I never vex her with little things; and I knew Miss Penelope would be quite safe at the Rectory."

for my egg in milk, and I am hot. You must fan me, Fielding."

"Yes, ma'am. And cook can't go yet, because she's just cutting the bread for your buttered toast, and you don't fancy anyone else's toast

Helen walked to the door.

"I will go," she said, and went. When she returned Fielding met her in the hall. "Oh, miss, you mustn't go to the boodoor, mistress is terribly upset-"

"Hasn't Miss Penelope been heard of yet? She hasn't been to--"

"Oh, yes, miss. Mr. Parker, the farmer, brought her back soon after you'd started. And mistress is that upset over her naughtiness—”

"What has she been doing?"

"Hiding and playing truant, and didn't want to come home, and mistress

"Where is she now?"

"She's locked into the box-room, miss, for a punishment."

A vast pity for the small prisoner swept over Helen's soul.

She looked round the darkening hall, and through her mind flashed those words of Charles Lamb anent his

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"I will ask your mistress"No, no, miss! She's quieted down now," Fielding held out the key in an agitated hand.

Helen took it and swept up the stairs.

She knew she might be disquieting herself vainly, but the mere idea of a child's suffering terror hurt her. She had been a nervous child herself.

When she opened the door of the boxroom silence and dim shadows greeted her. She peered round the room, which was filled with boxes and trunks and rubbish. She recognized with a thrill the ghostly possibilities of the place to a nervous prisoner.

"Penelope," her charming voice rang out clear and comforting.

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Over in a corner she descried bundle that looked despairingly human. She made her way swiftly to the corner and bent over the bundle.

"Darling." She touched the little figure, and a scream of terror echoed amongst the empty boxes.

Helen saw that Penelope was lying huddled up, face hidden against the floor, and both ears covered tight with agonized hands. Quickly, and with a firm touch, Helen pulled the hands away.

She felt a long shiver pass through the little body, but no more screams rang out. "Penelope, I am Aunt Helen. Darling, don't you remember me?" She held her close to her warm heart, "Aunt Helen, dear."

Slowly the figure in her arms relaxed. In a trembling whisper Penelope muttered, "They will get you too-you too

LIVING AGE. VOL. XVII. 900

"We'll come downstairs now," Helen said cheerfully.

A pair of arms clung round her neck with stifling fervor.

"Will you lock the door?" Penelope whispered, "there are such a lot of them-oh, do lock the door!"

"Yes, dear," answered Helen soothingly, "but it's only bad dreams, sweetheart."

She turned the key with reassuring creaks in the lock, and they went downstairs. Helen's gray eyes were

blazing.

"Did you have your tea, darling?" she asked briskly, as they entered the dining-room.

"There was the one with the light. green eyes," whispered Penelope, "and he was ever so long and he crept along round the boxes-"

"Penelope," Helen's voice was very firm, "he was a bad dream, they were all bad dreams; none of them were real. You must not talk about them. I shall be vexed with you if you do."

Penelope's arms tightened. "Oh, no! Oh, no!"

"Very well. Now tell me did you have a good tea?"

Penelope shook her head. "Why not?"

"I-I was too bad to have tea." "What did you have for dinner?" The arms clung. "I was-on the grass."

"Do you mean that you have had no dinner?"

"Yes."

For a moment Helen's lips shut in a straight line. Then she said gently, "Will you stay here a minute, dear? I want to get you something nice and hot to eat."

Penelope's short life had been one of obedience. She struggled valiantly and loosened her arms. When Helen saw the small white face for the first time in the light, her upper lip quiv

ered, and she caught Penelope to her doubted if Penelope followed what she

again.

Penelope's courage gave way; her arms clung round Helen's neck. "Please-oh, please," she whispered, "I don't want anything to eat-ever."

"We will ring for cook," said Helen tenderly.

When cook came she quailed under the gray eyes and made voluble excuses. Helen cut her short.

"Where is her dinner?"

"Cook did so 'ate waste, and that Fielding 'ad such a big appetite you wouldn't believe, and nat'rally they thought when Miss Peniloppy didn't come 'ome as 'ow she were dining at the Rectory."

"You mean you have eaten it. What have you in the house?"

It appeared that there was mistress's beef tea for that night and for to-mor

row.

"Make half of it hot at once for Miss Penelope."

Cook looked scared at that. She began a feeble remonstrance, but "I will take all blame," said Helen; and cook bustled away in a sudden hurry of sympathy for Penelope now that all responsibility was removed from her shoulders.

Helen sat down with Penelope on her knee, and kissed the soft little neck and cheeks and hair. Helen was rarely demonstrative, but there was an ache in her heart for her small niece.

Penelope said politely, "Thank you, Aunt Helen," and looked up at her with heavy, dazed eyes.

"Don't, child!" Helen's voice was sharp.

Penelope of course "I-am sorry," she said.

misunderstood.

It was a formula she was continually called upon to use without understanding why.

Helen's brows contracted. She kissed her gently, and began to talk to her pleasantly on cheerful subjects. She

said, but she achieved her object of making the atmosphere less electric and charged with invisible horrors.

When cook brought in the tray she set it down on the table with a beaming air of self-approval. "There, dearie, all strong and 'ot, and two pieces of toast with it!"

"Thank you, cook," Penelope said politely, but she did not want the food. However, she took it obediently, and when she had begun, liked it. When it was finished Helen put her arms round her close and warm. "Now tell me all about it, dear," she said.

And Penelope, her usual staid selfrestraint swept away in a mighty whirlwind of emotions, poured it all out in a torrent of sob-broken words. It was a queer jumble of pathos and humor, of tragedy and comedy, but to Penelope it was all tragedy. It was not only of that day she told; unknowingly she told of other days too. With the utter abandon of a sensitive nature meeting with an unexpected wealth of sudden love and sympathy, she poured out all without reservation. Many expressions shone in Helen's eyes as she listened. The little calf brought a pitiful smile to them, and they were often filled with sorrow; but there was anger too, deep anger, and scorn and disgust and wonder.

But when the breathless, broken voice ceased there was only love. Penelope lay exhausted in her arms, and a feeling of restful happiness stole over her. "Aunt Helen," she said earnestly, "you are heaps comfortabler than a bed."

Two minutes later Helen laid the small sleeping figure down on the sofa, covered it with a rug, and sought her sister.

Five minutes later still a bell was pealing wildly from the boudoir, and Mrs. Hardy was calling feebly for Fielding and sal volatile. Helen, her

head held high, her face pale, passed play and noise called up held her silent Fielding on the threshold.

A good deal can be said in five minutes.

dining-room.

She went back to the Penelope had vanished under the rug. "Penelope!"

At her voice the scared face and roughened hair emerged. Penelope flushed, "I-I thought just a minute I was in the box-room"-her eyes looked up appealingly into Helen's face.

"Never again, dear," Helen said firmly, "I am going to take you away with me"

She was interrupted by a sudden surprising disappearance of the sedateness she had thought part and parcel of her small niece. Penelope flung herself upon her with a choking cry, "With you with you?”

"Yes, dear, for always," said Helen gently.

"To-to live?" Penelope's voice was beyond her control, it shrilled out in quavering excitement. But habit was strong; she looked round anxiously, “I -didn't mean to make such a noise," she said apologetically.

"When you are with me, Penelope, you shall make as much noise as you like," said Helen recklessly.

Helen never did things by halves. It was one of her attributes that Sir Ralph Bennington dearly loved.

Penelope gasped. Then her arms squeezed Helen's throat spasmodically. "I-I'll sweep your room," she burst out, the eagerness of her longing to give something in return almost choking her voice. "I'll dig up the weeds! I'll do your dresses what do up at the back! I'll—I'll" her imagination failed her, she halted.

for awhile.

Helen went to a side table and found note paper and ink.

"P'raps," said Penelope nervously, "p'raps you don't know I are very stupid;" a scarlet flush crept over her small face.

"No," said Helen, "I don't believe it. Never mind if you are."

Penelope drew a big breath. Almost as she drew it she was overcome with sleep.

Then Helen hurried to the kitchen. "When does the last post go?" she asked.

"Seven twenty, Miss, from the orfice."

Helen glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Five minutes past seven. She ran back to the dining-room and dashed off a note.

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She addressed it, and then putting on her hat as she went, took it to the post-office herself. She caught the last post with a minute and a half to spare. That night Penelope slept in a warm bed close beside Helen.

And the little calf who had been the cause of it all slept in a warm barn close beside his mother. Perhaps, after all, he ought not to have been punished. For if he had not enticed Penelope from the path of duty-but then we are told that we must not do evil that good may come. Maybe, though, the laws are different in calf-land. Any

Helen kissed her. "You'll just play how the little calf was not punished, so and play and play!" she said.

"Oh!"

Penelope had an imagination. The wonders which the idea of unlimited

let it rest at that.

The next morning Haywold was electrified by the arrival of a telegram from London. Helen re

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The collapse of Mr. Baldwin's expedition by Franz Josef Land and the return of Commander Peary and Captain Sverdrup from their abortive attempts to reach the Pole from the American side may make it interesting to give a brief account of the various efforts that have been made to push northwards towards this goal during the last 400 years. Mr. Baldwin's richly-equipped expedition was frankly stated to have as its almost sole object a dash at the Pole, and although both the expeditions of Commander Peary and Captain Sverdrup had other and more substantial objects in view, still, in each case, these were to be combined with an attempt to pass all previous records in this direction.

During the latter half of the 16th century and the early years of the 17th, when so many stages of the long journey to the North Pole were covered, great progress was made in that section of the north polar area which lies to the north of Europe and includes the extensive land masses of Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen. Sir Hugh Willoughby, in the Bona Esperanza, 120 tons, Richard Chancellor, in the Edward Bonaventure, 160 tons, and Cornelius Durfourth, in the Bona

Confidentia, 90 tons, first led the way in 1553. The first two vessels reached Kolguev Island, or as some claim even the south-western shore of Novaya Zemlya in about 72° N. latitude; but the extent of the voyage is uncertain, as in the following winter all on board, numbering some 62 souls, miserably perished of cold and hunger. There is no doubt however, that Stephen Burrough in the Searchthrift pinnace reached 70° 20 min. N. latitude in 1556 and sighted the coast of Novaya Zemlya. The next great step northwards in this direction was made by the Dutch mariner, William Barents. Sent by the merchants of Amsterdam in the Mercury, 100 tons, to discover a passage to China round the north of the island, he sighted on July 4, 1594, the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 73° 25 min. N. latitude. Continuing his journey, he passed the northern limit of the island, finally reaching Orange Island north of the 77th parallel. Two years later another stage in the direction of the Pole was covered. A Dutch expedition comprising two vessels, Barents being chief pilot of the one and Cornelius Ryp in command of the other, sailed north past Bear Island to Spitzbergen, and in following its shores, then ex

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