idder an'
all.'

And then, bending down over the settle whereon they had placed the
mangled lad, she pressed her lips on the pale brow, clammy with
the ooze of death--lips long since forsaken by the early blush of
beauty, yet still warm with the instinct which in all true women
feeds itself with the wasting years. Tears fell from her
eyes--tears that told of unfathomed deeps of motherhood, despite
her threescore years and ten; while with lean and tremulous hand
she combed back the dank masses of hair that lay in clusters about
the boy's pallid face. Her reverence and love thus manifested--a
woman's offering to tortured flesh in the dark chamber of
pain--she unbuckled the leathern strap that clasped the little
collier's breeches to his waist, and, with a touch gentle enough
to carry healing, bared the body, now discoloured and torn, though
still the veined and plastic marble--the flesh-wall of the human
temple, so fearfully and wonderfully made.

The boy lay immobile. Scarce a pulse responded to the old woman's
touch as she placed the palm of her hand over the valve of his
young life. Nor did her fomentations rouse him, as feebler grew
the protest of the heart to the separation of the little soul from
the mangled body. At last the watchers thought the wrench was
over, and Death the lord of life.

Then the clayey hue, so long overshadowing the face, faded away in
the warmth of a returning tide of life, as a gray dawn is suffused
by sunrise. The beat became stronger and more frequent, there was
a movement in the passive limbs, and, opening his eyes dreamily,
then wonderingly, and at last consciously, the lad looked into the
old woman's face and said:

'Gronny!'

'Yi! it's Gronny, lad. And haa doesto feel?'

The boy tried to move, and uttered a feeble cry of pain.

'Lie thee still, lad. Doesto think thaa can ston this?' and the
old woman laid another hot flannel on the boy's body.

At first he winced, and a look of terrible torture passed over his
face. Then he smiled and said:

'Yi! Gronny, aw can bide thee to do ought.'

Mr. Penrose, helpless and silent, stood at the foot of the settle
on which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy
corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude
fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and
self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of
long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the
la