“If major Willoughby desired you to communicate anything to me, in particular,” she said, with seeming composure, “I am ready to hear it.”

“Divil the word did he desire, Miss Maud, for everything was in whispers between us, but jist what I’m about to repait.  And here’s my stick, that Nick tould me to kape as a reminderer; it ’s far bhetter for me than a book, as I can’t read a syllable.  ‘And now, Mike,’ says the majjor, says he, ’conthrive to see phratty Miss Maud by herself’——­”

“Pretty Miss Maud!” interrupted the young lady, involuntarily.

“Och! it’s meself that says that, and sure there ’s plenty of r’ason for it; so we’ll agree it’s all right and proper—­’phratty Miss Maud by herself, letting no mortal else know what you are about. That was the majjor’s.”

“It is very extraordinary!—­Perhaps it will be better Michael, if you tell me nothing but what is strictly the major’s.  A message should be delivered as nearly like the words that were actually sent as possible.”

“Wor-r-ds!—­And it isn’t wor-r-ds at all, that I have to give ye.”

“If not a message in words, in what else can it be?—­Not in sticks, surely.”

“In that”—­cried Mike, exultingly—­“and, I’ll warrant, when the trut’ comes out, that very little bit of silver will be found as good as forty Injin scalps.”

Although Mike put a small silver snuff-box that Maud at once recognised as Robert Willoughby’s property into the young lady’s hand, nothing was more apparent than the circumstance that he was profoundly ignorant of the true meaning of what he was doing.  The box was very beautiful, and his mother and Beulah had often laughed at the major for using an article that was then deemed de rigueur for a man of extreme ton, when all his friends knew he never touched snuff.  So far from using the stimulant, indeed, he never would show how the box was opened, a secret spring existing; and he even manifested or betrayed shyness on the subject of suffering either of his sisters to search for the means of doing so.

The moment Maud saw the box, her heart beat tumultuously.  She had a presentiment that her fate was about to be decided.  Still, she had sufficient self-command to make an effort to learn all her companion had to communicate.

“Major Willoughby gave you this box,” she said, her voice trembling in spite of herself.  “Did he send any message with it?  Recollect yourself; the words may be very important.”

“Is it the wor-r-ds?  Well, it’s little of them that passed between us, barrin’ that the Injins was so near by, that it was whisper we did, and not a bit else.”

“Still there must have been some message.”

“Ye are as wise as a sarpent, Miss Maud, as Father O’Loony used to tell us all of a Sunday!  Was it wor-r-ds!—­Give that to Miss Maud,’ says the majjor, says he, ’and tell her she is now misthress of my sacret.”