She was more desolate than she had been in
London; for there her mother had sometimes come up to the attic to play
with her, or to nurse her in her arms for a few minutes. There was no
one to love her now, except old Nathan.

There was a still greater change in Miss Priscilla Parry. The neighbours
said she was gone out of her mind; and it was true that all her nature
seemed turned to hardness and sternness. She was never seen to smile,
nor did she speak a word that was not absolutely necessary. She gave up
going to church and market, and she refused to see any visitor who came
up to the farm.

On Sunday evening, when the usual meeting was held in her kitchen, and
the curious neighbours came in larger numbers than usual, they no longer
saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda's pretty face had
made so strong a contrast with her aunt's. Miss Priscilla, after Rhoda's
foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in which there
was a small trap-door, made when her mother was bedridden, that she
might hear the prayers and the sermon and the singing in the kitchen
below. It was some weeks before old Nathan, who looked every Sunday if
the trap-door was open, saw that it had been lifted up, and knew his
mistress was listening.

When Miss Priscilla was downstairs about her work it was a sad sight to
see her. Her grey hair had gone quite white, and her eyes were worn out
with weeping. Her shoulders were bent as if she was always stooping
under a heavy burden, and she seldom lifted her head or looked up from
the ground. Joan often saw her lips moving, though no sound came through
them. Everybody except old Nathan thought she was mad.

CHAPTER III

THE CHILD IN THE MANGER

The long winter evenings were very dreary when the sun set early and the
rain and the fogs overspread the mountains, and enshrouded the home with
blackness.

Aunt Priscilla used to retire upstairs, where Joan could hear her
sobbing often in the darkness; and the two young servants, the maid and
the ploughboy, as soon as she was safely out of the way, would slink off
out of the kitchen, where their mistress could overhear them.

It was not worth while to light a candle for a little girl like Joan,
and many a long hour she sat alone in the dark chimney-corner with no
light save the dull red glimmer of the embers in the grate, and hearing
strange, mysterious noises all about her, sounds so low and quiet that
they could only b