eyes devoured the familiar landscape through which the train hurried-so fast it went, as if it grudged her the sight that caused such joy and pain. There was the shell of Healey Mill, with a mass of twisted machinery filling the whole centre. There were the sloping green fields; the dark, sluggish canal; the long, damp, straight Todmorden Road;' the white house in a wood on the left, Stanlaw amid its trees on the right—the dark wall of Blackrigg shutting out all behind. So they flew on, past more mills, into a cutting, with the canal at the top on the right, and half-a-dozen careless children on the bank, looking down, shouting and waving their caps at the train. Then they plunged into the long tunnel, and all was darkness. Katharine crouched into a corner of the carriage; she thought of her only friend who was now on his way to the office up at Healey; she thought of the desolate, weather-beaten Bentfoot Church, and of the grave in the churchyard - which made all earth a grave to her of herself, with a long, lonely life before her, and she pressed her hands over her mouth to keep back the cry which almost forced itself from her lips. CHAPTER XVI. Say not thou, In what were the former days better than these? for thou dost not wisely inquire concerning this.'-Ecclesiastes. 'Just then fled past a maniac maid, And her name was Hope, she said.'-SHELLEY. UITE six months later, at the end of August, Katharine Healey was still at Skernford, in the county of Durham, under the roof of Eliza Earnshaw and Susannah her daughter, members of the Society of Friends. No matter what has been her inner experience during that time-nor how sad, how lonely she has been. It is but a thankless pastime to trace the repinings of a loveless, joyless, plain, lonely woman. Let me rather take up her story at the time when the first glimpse of change appeared in the even, unvarying monotony of her life as it had been for the last six months. On this particular evening Katharine had betaken herself to the company of Eliza and her daughter. Long ago she discovered that solitude would not do. She dared not trust herself, with the memories and the griefs that stored her mind, to be much alone. Mrs. Earnshaw and her daughter, if not very entertaining company, were at least something to be wondered at. Katharine had sat for some time in silence, turning over the leaves of a corpulent black volume entitled Letters and Memoirs of Sarah Grubb, wherein were set forth the pious ramblings of a noted Friend; her excursions on missions to all parts of the country, and the different opportunities' she had enjoyed with more and less advanced brethren. Katharine yawned drearily as her eyes fell upon the words, My dear J. G. had a precious solemn time, beginning with the query, "Will ye go away also?”' She wondered vaguely what it meant; then her mind reverted to what had occupied it all day. Turning to Eliza, she said 'Mrs. Earnshaw, have you heard from your nephew lately?' 'I have several nephews, Katharine Healey.' "But I only know one. I mean Ughtred Earnshaw.' 'Yes,' replied Eliza, I have had a letter from my nephew Ughtred (I could wish his name were less vain and unmeaning). thee any concern to hear of him?' ་ Has 'I should like to know how he is, and whether he thinks of coming here soon,' said Katharine, steadily, and not avoiding the four inquiring eyes that were bent upon her. 'He speaks of coming, if the Lord will (at least he says nothing about if the Lord will-I wish he did), towards the end of next week.' |