sunk deep down in their hollow, cavernous
sockets; but the light was in them still,
when Edward came. Her mother dreaded
her returning strength—dreaded, yet desired
it; for the heavy burden of her secret was
most oppressive at times, and she thought
Edward was beginning to weary of his enforced
attentions. One October evening she told
her the truth. She even compelled her rebellious
heart to take the cold, reasoning side of
the question; and she told her child that her
disabled frame was a disqualification for ever
becoming a farmer's wife. She spoke hardly,
because her inner agony and sympathy was
such, she dared not trust herself to express
the feelings that were rending her. But
Nest turned away from cold reason; she
revolted from her mother; she revolted from
the world. She bound her sorrow tight up
in her breast, to corrode and fester there.

Night after night, her mother heard her
cries and moans more pitiful, by far, than
those wrung from her by bodily pain a year
before; and, night after night, if her mother
spoke to soothe, she proudly denied the
existence of any pain but what was physical, and
consequent upon her accident.

"If she would but open her sore heart to
me—to me, her mother," Eleanor wailed
forth in prayer to God, "I would be content.
Once it was enough to have my Nest all my
own. Then came love, and I knew it would
never be as before; and then I thought the
grief I felt, when Edward spoke to me, was
as sharp a sorrow as could be; but this
present grief, Oh Lord, my God, is worst of all;
and Thou only, Thou, canst help!"

When Nest grew as strong as she was ever
likely to be on earth, she was anxious to have
as much labour as she could bear. She would
not allow her mother to spare her anything.
Hard work—bodily fatigue—she seemed to
crave. She was glad when she was stunned
by exhaustion into a dull insensibility of feeling.
She was almost fierce when her mother,
in those first months of convalescence,
performed the household tasks which had
formerly been hers; but she shrank from going
out of doors. Her mother thought that she
was unwilling to expose her changed
appearance to the neighbours' remarks; but Nest
was not afraid of that: she was afraid of
their pity, as being one deserted and cast of.
If Eleanor gave way before her daughter's
imperiousness, and sat by while Nest "tore"
about her work with the vehemence of a
bitter heart, Eleanor could have cried, but
she durst not; tears, or any mark of
commiseration, irritated the crippled girl so much,
she even drew away from caresses. Everything
was to go on as it had been before she
had known Edward; and so it did, outwardly;
but they trod carefully, as if the ground on
which they moved was hollow—deceptive.
There was no more careless ease; every word
was guarded, and every action planned. It
was a dreary life to both. Once, Eleanor
brought in a little baby, a neighbour's child,
to try and tempt Nest out of herself, by her
old love of children. Nest's pale face flushed
as she saw the innocent child in her mother's
arms; and, for a moment, she made as if she
would have taken it; but then, she turned
away, and hid her face behind her apron, and
murmured, "I shall never have a child to lie
in my breast, and call me mother!" In a
minute she arose, with compressed and
tightened lips, and went about her household
work, without her noticing the cooing baby
again, till Mrs. Gwynn, heart-sick at the
failure of her little plan, took it back to its
parents.

One day the news ran through Pen-Morfa
that Edward Williams was about to be married.
Eleanor had long expected this intelligence.
It came upon her like no new thing;
but it was the filling-up of her cup of woe.
She could not tell Nest. She sat listlessly in
the house, and dreaded that each neighbour
who came in would speak about the village
news. At last, some one did. Nest looked
round from her employment, and talked of
the event with a kind of cheerful curiosity as
to the particulars, which, made her informant
go away, and tell others that Nest had quite
left off caring for Edward Williams. But
when the door was shut, and Eleanor and
she were left alone, Nest came and stood
before her weeping mother like a stern
accuser.

"Mother, why did not you let me die?
Why did you keep me alive for this?"
Eleanor could not speak, but she put her arms
out towards her girl. Nest turned away, and
Eleanor cried aloud in her soreness of spirit.
Nest came again.

"Mother, I was wrong. You did your
best. I don't know how it is I am so hard
and cold. I wish I had died when I was a
girl, and had a feeling heart."

"Don't speak so, my child. God has
afflicted you sore, and your hardness of heart
is but for a time. Wait a little. Don't
reproach yourself, my poor Nest. I understand
your ways. I don't mind them, love.
The feeling heart will come back to you in
time. Anyways, don't think you 're grieving
me, because, love, that may sting you when
I'm gone; and I'm not grieved, my darling.
Most times we're very cheerful, I think."

After this, mother and child were drawn
more together. But Eleanor had received
her death from these sorrowful, hurrying
events. She did not conceal the truth from
herself; nor did she pray to live, as some
months ago she had done, for her child's sake;
she had found out that she had no power to
console the poor wounded heart. It seemed
to her as if her prayers had been of no avail;
and then she blamed herself for this thought.

There are many Methodist preachers in this
part of Wales. There was a certain old man,
named David Hughes, who was held in
peculiar reverence because he had known the