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Vo, red Hirell, her sweet voice ringing out with sudden ssion, father, it is not that—it is not that. I do not know-unless it be I

My want I canwant the wish to ive-bu at least I cannot find it here. Oh, let me go, I wane to d out not only for myself, but for us all, which is all the things I read and think of, or this life-this sad, send if we all lead here.'

as leaned his elbow on the bureau, and his forehead in his hand, for some time, without answering.

At last he looked up with heavy, wistful eyes.

I believe, Hirell,' he said, 'you have thoughts which I canHo understand, and I do not think it is because they are too foolish, but because they are too deep. In this case I had better leave it to your own wish to go or stay. If you think for your good to He stopped suddenly, and Hirell looked round in gentle surprise.

then go,

go,

but-'

His head as he sat at the bureau, with his back towards her, was upright when she turned, but as she looked, it drooped forwards, and the hard hands received it, the fingers quivering as if they would reason with and uphold it against its weakness.

Hirell's eyes dilated, and filled with water and light—her heart swelled. She looked at the bent figure. Would it turn upon her angrily in a minute? Should she go out of the room? She felt he would wish she should.

She did go a few steps, but came back and stood near him. She laid her hand upon his shoulder, requiring all her courage to do so. He was difficult to approach in his lightest moods. Was she not daring too much to come near him in his sorrow?

Father,' she said, schooling her voice, that her yearning sympathy might not show itself, and annoy or startle him, and there was only perceptible in its music a faint breath of the passion she crushed down, that stole sweetly into his uses, like the perfume of a trodden flower, 'Father, have I axed you ? am I wrong in what I have asked ? › He raised his head slowly and looked at her. The tenderOs in her eyes was like some strange transfiguring light upon bor. He gazed at her as at something holy and far off, and hook his head.

'No, Hirell,' he said, 'if it seems right to you to go-gobut-I-'

The flinty eyes filled, and turned from her slowly, as he added

'I was sorry, for I had need of you. I had need of you.' She stood a minute-her face streaming with large calm tears.

Then she knelt by him and clasped her hands on his knee. 'Father,' she said, 'how wise you are ! Oh I am amazed to think what wisdom God has given you. You have lighted

all my darkness; you have shown me what my want was.' 'My child! what was it?'

She put her arms up round his neck, and laid her wet face on his bosom, whispering with a deep joy,

'Oh, father, my need was that you should need me.'

CHAPTER XVII.

A BEAM OF LIGHT.

THE earliest step on the oak stairs of Bod Elian, next morning, was Hirell's.

The night had been one of awakening instead of sleep for her; she had for the first time been brought to understand how all the sternness and strength with which her father had encountered their late misfortune had been wrung from a nature sensitive as her own; less selfishly, more nobly sensitive she felt. How easily had the blow struck her down! How helpless, how weak she had been while all the household had been patiently and bravely bearing their increased burdens! Poor Hugh was to be cast inexperienced, unprepared as he was, into the world, to make his own way as best he might.

Kezia, in addition to the heavier housework that Hirell's negligence had imposed on her, was earning a few pence a week by knitting stockings for the post-office shop of Capel Illtyd; and was so anxious over this private little scheme of hers that Hirell had once seen her fingers moving in her sleep as if busy with needles and worsteds.

'And I have done nothing since that miserable day,' she thought, but neglect what little work I did before, and add seriously to their anxiety.'

Then came the question, at first put passionately to herself, then fervently and entreatingly to God, 'What can I do? what can I do?'

Then she lay still and thought. She longed to be of great service to them all. She felt capable of achieving some act of heroism, if only it might be pointed out to her; but she at once saw the danger of any such dream keeping her from accepting humbly and with fitting earnestness the small, insignificant duties which alone were ready to her hand.

When in the morning she looked into her small dressing-glass nailed to the window-frame, the sight of her face, the beauty of which was intensified by the tenderness and enthusiasm that had sprung up in her heart, had a strange effect upon her. She took it as an evidence that the purity and light belonging to one of the elect were still in her spirit; and that her labours in the house, humble as they might be, were to be blessed by God.

With her feet unshod and her clumsy wooden shoes in her arm, that her steps on the bare oak stairs might not disturb the weary sleepers, she came from her room fresh, bright, noiseless as the sunbeams on the old stone walls; and, in so doing, startled back into his room a certain restless spirit who was slowly opening his door and meditating an escape from the house when the fair apparition appeared before him.

She did not see him, but sat down on the seat of the old window on the stairs to look at the sun shining over her father's fields. They had yielded nearly all their little harvest, and were looking empty and worn out; but Hirell's gaze rested on them tenderly, and found a pathetic beauty in what others would have seen but as stony barren wastes. There bloomed for her, at their corners and edges, memories brighter than the blue corn-flowers, and richer than the scarlet poppies of Robert Chamberlayne's Kentish fields. How many years had these black furrows and clods drunk the sweat of hands dear to her! By what hopes at sowing time, and disappointments at harvest, were they not consecrated! She wondered she could have longed so to leave them; her eye glistened with joy to think how gently she had been turned back. And, thinking this, Hirell rose and went down the stairs, pausing sometimes to feel how very still the house was; and to listen,

her finger on her lip, to the deep, calm breathing she

could hear from the upper rooms. There was something strange to her in this feeling. She told Kezia afterwards that she thought God must have called her to show her how sweet and sacred He kept the house during their helplessness.

All the time she was descending, her face was looking up towards where the sleepers lay, with a smile of deep, reverential joy; and she whispered softly to herself, as she thought of all their trouble,

He giveth his beloved sleep.

The ticking of the old clock in the hall seemed to give no suggestion of haste, or even progression, but seemed rather like the measured tread of pacing feet, as if Time himself had turned sentinel to watch them. As Hirell took her hat from the row that lay on the bench by the door, it seemed to her a stranger might almost tell the characters of the owners by looking at them. There was her father's tall-crowned beaver, with a curve in its brim, which had a rigid, obstinate look peculiar to itself. There was Hugh's soft felt with the crushed crown, old and soiled, but with careless grace in every line as it lay upon the bench. There was Kezia's-of the ancient sugarloaf shape-prim, and straight, and neat; and there was the large low-crowned beaver worn by the Reverend Ephraim Jones on his visit to Bod Elian; which, with its nap turned the wrong way, had caught the antagonistic expression of its wearer's face and form.

Hirell took her own from among them, and went out into the square flat field in front of the house, where the cows were standing by the wall waiting for Nanny to milk them.

There was a wild freshness in the morning, a joyous hurrying of water, gushes of birds' song glad and loud, flying armies of yellow leaves mad with liberty, a merry minstrel in every tree shaking music from it, and rain-drops that came dashing brightly down like tears shaken off by laughter.

Blithely as a child Hirell ran against the breeze, and came laughing and singing among the cows, which she caressed and spoke to separately with that soft drawl in the voice with which one often speaks to children or animals.

In the old times, when nothing but poverty and hard toil was expected at Bod Elian, Hirell had always helped Nanny with the milking; but she discontinued this directly the news came of their good fortune, for she had always disliked the

K

task, and other and far pleasanter duties were thronging to

her hand.

She had not resumed it when all that dream was over; and seeing her sad eye and pale cheek, they had not urged it upon her. Nanny had grumbled, but only with her face buried in the cows' sides, and would not have said a word about it to Hirell or Elias for the world.

This morning when Nanny went, gaping and rubbing her eyes, to where the two tin pails hung, she could not find them; and was uttering one of her not very refined maledictions on the person who had moved them, when, glancing round, she saw them standing ready with the milk in them.

In her surprise she glanced up to the little deep square window, and saw there a face looking at her with a sweet. expression-pensive, amused, penitent. The little hand, in which the chin rested, was red with its labour; and the snowy forehead was moist under the half-rings of auburn hair that had been ruffled against the cows' sides; the hazel eyes looked deep, and full, and very bright.

As Nanny looked at that face her own became ennobled by a tender admiration and affection.

'Yes, yes!' she said in Welsh, with a rough fervour in her voice, 'they did right to call you so, Hirell, Hirell !'

The head, set like a picture in the square stone windowframe, shook gently, and a voice answered, also in Welsh'No, Nanny; it is too holy a name for me. Angel! ah, what must the real angels think of me for keeping it.'

6

Nonsense, Miss Hirell-bach!' said Nanny, they know fast enough you've as much right to it as they have; and indeed more, for they know it's more to your credit to stay here, where angels are so much needed, than to sit up there twanging their harps and hallelujahing all their time away. You not an angel! Why what more would you do to be one?' 'My work as I used to do it, for one thing, Nanny; mind you call me to-morrow, if I do not wake myself,' answered Hirell.

SO

Then the face passed from the window-the beam of light was gone from before Nanny's eyes.

It came upon Kezia next, as she stood looking in amazement at the breakfast all prepared and ready.

1 Bach-term of endearment.

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