er child sickened and died. Tears fell like rain down Ruth's
cheeks; but those of the old woman were dry. All tears had been wept
out of her long ago, and now she sat patient and quiet, waiting
for death. But after this, Ruth "clave unto her," and the two were
henceforward a pair of friends. Mr Farquhar was only included in the
general gratitude which she felt towards all who had been kind to her
boy.

The winter passed away in deep peace after the storms of the autumn,
yet every now and then a feeling of insecurity made Ruth shake for an
instant. Those wild autumnal storms had torn aside the quiet flowers
and herbage that had gathered over the wreck of her early life, and
shown her that all deeds, however hidden and long passed by, have
their eternal consequences. She turned sick and faint whenever Mr
Donne's name was casually mentioned. No one saw it; but she felt the
miserable stop in her heart's beating, and wished that she could
prevent it by any exercise of self-command. She had never named his
identity with Mr Bellingham, nor had she spoken about the seaside
interview. Deep shame made her silent and reserved on all her
life before Leonard's birth; from that time she rose again in her
self-respect, and spoke as openly as a child (when need was) of all
occurrences which had taken place since then; except that she could
not, and would not, tell of this mocking echo, this haunting phantom,
this past, that would not rest in its grave. The very circumstance
that it was stalking abroad in the world, and might reappear at any
moment, made her a coward: she trembled away from contemplating what
the reality had been; only she clung more faithfully than before
to the thought of the great God, who was a rock in the dreary land,
where no shadow was.

Autumn and winter, with their lowering skies, were less dreary than
the woeful, desolate feelings that shed a gloom on Jemima. She found
too late that she had considered Mr Farquhar so securely her own
for so long a time, that her heart refused to recognise him as lost
to her, unless her reason went through the same weary, convincing,
miserable evidence day after day, and hour after hour. He never spoke
to her now, except from common civility. He never cared for her
contradictions; he never tried, with patient perseverance, to bring
her over to his opinions; he never used the wonted wiles (so tenderly
remembered now they had no existence but in memory) to bring her
round out o