mises of Him who
setteth the solitary in families.

Then she returned to herself, and to her new and opening world of
maternity. No longer would she be the butt at which the rude,
though good-natured, jests of her neighbours were thrown, for she
too would soon hold up her head proudly among the mothers of
Rehoboth. And as for Matt's mother--fierce Calvinist that she was,
and whom in the past she had so much feared--what cared she for
her now? She would cease to be counted by her as one of the
uncovenanted, and told that she had broken the line of promise
given to the elect. How well she remembered the night when the old
woman, taking up the Bible, read out aloud: 'The promise is unto
you, and to your children,' afterwards clinching the words by
saying: 'Thaa sees, Miriam, thaas noan in it, for thaa's no
childer'; and how, when she gently protested, 'But is not the
promise to all that are afar off?' the elect sister of the church
and daughter of God destroyed her one ray of hope by saying: 'Yi!
but only to as mony as the Lord aar God shall co.' And Matt--poor
Matt--across whom the cold shadow had so long lain, and which,
despite his love of her, would creep now and again like a cloud
over the sunshine of his face--Matt, too, would be redeemed from
his long disappointment, and renewed in strength as he saw a
purpose in his life's struggle, even the welfare of his posterity.
These thoughts, and many others, all passed through Miriam's mind
as she stood looking out from the mound upon the sundown moors.

Dreaming thus, she was startled by a well-known voice; and looking
in the direction whence the sound came, she saw her husband in the
distance beckoning her to meet him. Nor did she wait for his
further eager gesticulations, but at once, with fleet foot,
descended the slope, towards the path by which he was approaching.

Ere she reached him, however, she realized as never before the
secret she was about to confide, and for the first time in her
life became self-conscious. How could she meet Matt, and how could
she tell him? In a moment her naturalness and girlish buoyancy
forsook her. She was lost in a distrait mood. Joy changed to
shyness; a hot flush, not of shame, but of restraint, mounted her
cheeks. Then she slackened her pace, and for a moment wished that
Matt could know all apart from her confession.

To how many of nervous temperament is self-consciousness the bane
of existence--while the more such try to mast