CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE BRANDER.
Mistress Croale was not, after all, the last who arrived at the Mains.

But that the next arrival was accounted for, scarcely rendered it less marvellous than hers .-- Just after the loss of Snowball, came floating into the farmyard, over the top of the gate, with such astonishment of all who beheld that each seemed to place more confidence in his neighbour's eyes than in his own, a woman on a raft, with her four little children seated around her, holding the skirt of her gown above her head and out between her hands for a sail.

She had made the raft herself, by tying some bars of a paling together, and crossing them with what other bits of wood she could find--a brander she called it, which is Scotch for a gridiron, and thence for a grating.

Nobody knew her.

She had come down the Lorrie.