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which filled it, keeping him for ever watchful and antagonistic, his face grew calm, peaceful, radiant.

His eyes swam in glad light, like the eyes of a soldier who descries through the battle's smoke, and lines of interknitting steel, the green hills of the land on which he would set his foot as a conqueror.

Hirell gazed at him in childlike wonder and reverence as he knelt there, his large red face slightly raised, his thick lips firmly set, his nostrils distended, his blotched forehead updrawn in thick lines, his eyes full of tender ecstasy.

Did he see his little boy who had been taken from him, Hirell wondered? Did he see him on those glorious shores to which he looked? The look was so humanly as well as divinely happy, she almost thought he must.

She would have liked to ask him when they rose from their knees, but it was not permissible at Bod Elian to hold any converse after the last prayers of the day. She could not forbear touching his great hand with her lips when he wished her good night and blessed her.

Then Elias went first with the one light which was to be set in the passage before the partly-open doors to serve for all. They were all on the broad oak staircase together, Elias foremost with the candle, then Hirell and Kezia, then Hugh with his two dogs, who always lay at his door, and Ephraim Jones came guarding the rear, his great Bible in his hand.

As he passed Rymer's door, he could not himself forbear breaking the silence by a deep groan, which so startled Hugh's dogs that they growled ominously, till silenced by their young master's foot.

Rymer heard both sounds, and felt as strange in his bedchamber as he had done at the supper-table of his new Welsh home.

CHAPTER XVI.

HIRELL.

THE autumn rains set in now with persistent force, making the slow monotonous days at Bod Elian pass still more slowly and monotonously, and impoverishing Elias Morgan's scant harvest fields.

In spite of the wet weather, the lodger spent most of his time out-of-doors, and when he remained in shunned the

family, and shut himself up in his own room. He was so irregular in his habits, as to cause Elias no little annoyance.

On some mornings he would not come from his bedroom till nearly noon, on others Elias met him returning before breakfast from the barren hills behind Moel Mawr. He was an inexhaustible theme for gossip and speculation in the village of Capel Illtyd, where every morning a group assembled at the little post-office to compare notes and discuss him. At Bod Elian no such gossip was permitted. Elias, while in his heart resenting his lodger's apparent contempt for his rules, sternly silenced all curious comments and speculations concerning him.

Before Ephraim Jones left Wales, Elias gave him a simple account of what he had himself observed about Rymer, making no mention of reports that had come to him, and the minister had answered—

'It is manifest to me he is at war with the enemy of the world. Bear with him while this appears so; honour him if he seem to you victorious; cast him from your house if you see signs of his being conquered, for Satan will use him there for no good purpose."

Elias, while much impressed with this view of the case, did not see exactly how to deal with it, finding it impossible to tell by his lodger's moods whether he or his supposed antagonist was enjoying the best of the conflict.

But Elias had little time and few thoughts to spare away from the hard duties of his farm and household, and it was much the same with everyone else at Bod Elian. Kezia was busied with preparations-very humble ones this time-for Hugh's departure. Hugh intended to be of wonderful assistance to Elias with the harvest work, but he was restless and preoccupied—as most people are on the eve of a great change. Elias was very patient with him, and never told him he was doing him more harm than good.

The lad had already recovered so much hope concerning his prospects in London, that Elias began to have less anxiety about him.

His greatest care was Hirell. It was the thought of her that so often kept his weary eyes from closing at night, and hat made his meagre harvest bitter to him.

She was drooping daily-in spirits and in health-he saw it he had seen it from the very day when the great shock had

come to them. He watched her in perplexity and fear. If she had fretted and complained he would have understood that as the natural effect of disappointment. But he never saw her in tears; and if she sometimes spoke impatiently, it was never on the subject of their poverty-but generally to Kezia for showing too much concern for her.

Sometimes Elias returning with his little cart full of spare sheaves up the field in front of the house, would see Hirell between the garden trees standing lost in sad thought. He would have given up his best acre to know what kind of thought it was. Did the girl reproach him in her own mind, he wondered, for letting her enjoy too much the fruits of their brief prosperity?

One day Nest Lloyd, the curate's daughter, who had visited them two or three times since their trouble, called and left some books for Hirell.

Elias watched her when Nest was gone-taking up one volume after another and throwing each down again impatiently. He went over to the settle where she sat, and looked at the titles.

'And did the child of a minister of the gospel advise you to read these?' he said. "They are novels, the work of those who think the world so deficient in wickedness and vanity they must needs imagine more. Hirell, you will not read these? 'Very well, father,' she acquiesced, wearily.

He was touched by her passiveness. It rather pained him, appearing as if she had no interest in anything. He felt himself growing weak enough to wish she would ask leave to read one of the books, and detecting the weakness, said sternly'Such works are most pernicious.'

'It is a pity, then, that some of them are so beautiful,' answered Hirell.

Then they have corrupted your mind already, or you could not think so,' said her father.

'Perhaps that is it,' she returned, sadly, but quite simply, and without a touch of satirical meaning in her voice.

Elias was more and more disappointed. He now quite longed for her to ask for one of the books; and was so angry with himself for the feeling that he put them aside and said—

'See that these are sent back and no more of their kind allowed to enter this house.'

'Yes, father,' said Hirell, without looking a bit distressed or disappointed.

And do you take a pleasure in reading such things?' asked Elias, hoping still to draw a request from her.

'While I am reading them—yes,' answered Hirell; 'I have found the greatest happiness I have ever known in reading two or three-but I think it must be a kind of fool's paradise, for I find my own life so much duller afterwards. At all events I know I am the sadder for reading them. I know it is better for me to give them up.'

The sight of the books going away cost Elias far more regret than it did Hirell. He could not understand her. She was a mystery to him, but he had a deep faith in her; he was certain that the mystery hid something good and beautiful that his mind was too dense to understand. He had no wish to see her mind brought to the level of his own, nor did he ever once tell himself she was better left to her own thoughts, and that there could be nothing in common between them. The more saintly and beautiful she seemed to him, the more his heart cried out that she was his child-the more his mind yearned up to hers. He was frightened of his love and reverence for her frightened that they might weaken his hand as a father and guide, and in this fear he often dealt more harshly with her than anyone else.

He was sitting one morning at his bureau, in the close little parlour, busy at accounts, when the door opened and closed, and without hearing a step on the carpet he knew that Hirell stood near him.

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Are you very busy, father? may I speak to you?' she said.

His hard fingers fluttered nervously among the bills in the bureau. It was an unusual thing her coming to him in this way.

Surely, Hirell,' he answered, half turning towards her.

She sat down on one of the old horse-hair chairs, and fell with a grace indescribable for its gentle naturalness into her customary attitude, her elbow in one hand, and her chin in the other.

'Father,' she said, 'Ephraim Jones was talking to me the other night before he left us about my going away from home and doing something to earn my own living.'

Elias turned his face towards the bill-file, and moved the

papers up and down. After a minute he moistened his lips, and said

'Well, Hirell?'

'I have thought a great deal about it, and I feel it would be better, much better if I did.'

Her cheek was flushed, and her hazel eyes were very earnest as she met her father's slow, puzzled gaze.

'You wish to go away from home, Hirell?' he asked her, slowly.

'I wish it very much.'

She had no thought of paining him. She had conjectured he might disapprove of her wish, that he might refuse to gratify it, but it had never occurred to her that he might be shocked or hurt. He had so carefully concealed his heart behind his conscience, that those belonging to him had almost forgotten it lived and felt. Hirell had great veneration for his character; he seemed to her to embody all that was grand in the old puritans, of whom she delighted to read. She had also a strong love for him; but this she looked on from childhood as a useless possession, for ever since she could run alone she had been taught to do all that she did for duty's, not love's sake. To her he was faultless, but cold and unmoved by human weakness as a rock.

When she watched him moving the papers in the bureau, she was disturbed by no fear but of her wish being denied to her.

'Will you tell me, Hirell,' asked Elias, very gently, 'why you think it better for you to leave home?

'I'm afraid I cannot see all the reasons plain enough to tell them to you,' said Hirell, but one great thing that I want to go for is-'

She hesitated. Elias thought she doubted his power of understanding her, but Hirell's doubt was all of herself.

'What is the one great thing you want to go for, Hirell?' he asked.

'To see,' she answered, 'to see if life everywhere is as hard and dull, and unlike all the beautiful life in books as it is here.'

'No,' said Elias, a faint colour rising in his cheek, I can answer for that, Hirell. You might go far no place so poor as your father's house just now. wonder you should wish to leave it.'

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