heavy slumber of profound mental and
physical exhaustion. Daisy, having drunk
some broth old Keziah brought her, saying,
"It's good, I knows, I made it for her,"
pointing to the room where the dead woman
lay, threw herself, dressed as she was, on the
bed, beside her child, with no expectation
of sleep, no wish for it. But she did sleep
till morning, and woke to find yesterday no
dream. She kept still, for the little one
still slept: she gazed at it worshipfully.
This morning she began to think of
Kenneth Stewart, and though he and his love
for her still seemed to stand afar off, to be
long ago, she wept for him. If her way
had been made simple and straight, her
life enriched with a priceless gift, what
sorrow was piled up in his! He had held
her always in a sort of shrine, and now
what would he have to learn to think
her? Towards him her conduct had been
so cruelly deceitful, so miserably selfish
and cowardly: she had never known it so
plainly as now. She wept for him very
bitterly, and, in simple language, prayed
for him — that "he might not mind so very
much."

The day to which Daisy had wakened
was Sunday. Within the house the
presence of death caused an unearthly-seeming
stillness, and outside the house was the
heavenly quiet of a stainless, stirless
autumn morning. In such country as that
about Moor-Edge, still, sunny, autumn
weather has a profound and peculiar
charm. Its calm seems to flow from
billow to billow along the uplands, and to
fill up the measure of the valleys, and to
have at once a breadth, a substance, and a
spirituality unknown at lower levels.

Daisy, opening her window early, and
looking out, over a tract of shining moorland,
down upon plains and valleys, felt
both awed and soothed by the silent, soft
radiance of the world. But by-and-bye the
little one woke hungry, and Daisy made
haste to take it down-stairs. Early as it
was, breakfast was set ready for her and
the child in the little sitting-room she used
to call hers when she stayed at Moor-
Edge.

Daisy's first most important care in the
world was to feed the little one with its
bread and milk, her greatest delight to
find that he would take his food from her
hand uncomplainingly, though seriously and
sadly, and with eyes that sought about
wistfully for the familiar face.

"Poor master's up and out," Keziah
told her. "The funeral's to be after
tomorrow. I most fear it'll be the death of
him to see her taken away. Ah, but she
was a good woman, if ever there was one."
A pause, and the old woman's apron was
passed across her face. "The child's
taken to you wonderful," she then went on.
"It's not a child like just any other child,
as you'll find; it has strange ways with it.
She didn't use to think it would live.
Look to it now, ma'am; wouldn't you
think it know'd each word we're saying,
and more, and could talk most sensible-
like if it chose, but it's never spoken, not
one word."

As Daisy looked the child returned her
gaze with a searching earnestness; then
the mouth and chin quivered, the eyes
filled, and the face was suddenly turned
and hidden in Daisy's bosom, seeking
shelter with the cause of fear.

"You know he's my own child?" Daisy
asked, jealously. "I'm a widow, and he's
my own child. I was mad when I said I
wouldn't own him. My own child, my own
darling!"

"The mistress told me when she knew
she was dying she told me I was to do
about everything as you bid me; but she
said she was sure you'd own the child,
that you wouldn't leave him motherless."

"I'm a widow, and he's my son— all the
world may know it," said Daisy, proudly.
"He's my own, own, own beautiful boy!"
she added to herself and to the child.

All the morning Daisy sat in the great
corn-field with her child on her knees, or
strolled about it, carrying him in her arms.
After dinner she took him out again. All
thought spared from him was given to
Kenneth Stewart; but, indeed, so foolishly
was she engrossed by this new. and
wonderful toy, that the day was almost done
before she knew. It was no use to write
to-day, there was no post; to-night, while
her child slept, she would write, she
thought.

The day was declining in the same
perfect calm, the same serene radiance, with
which the morning had dawned. Just now
and then the bell of a distant hill-side
chapel dropped out a note; now and then
the child made some little inarticulate
noise; now and then came some Sunday
sound from the farm-yard. Would all her
life, foolish Daisy wondered, be as peaceful
and as satisfied, now she had given herself
to her child, as this day had been?

"And will my darling love me always,
always love me?" she bowed her face over
the child and asked.

Between them and the sunlight a
shadow crossed, as between them and last