I hear the wind wave the rank grass on thy tomb."

Partly moaning, and partly singing, the poor creature, exhausted by a
night of severe pain, and still greater mental anxiety, dropped off into
a broken slumber, with the dead infant closely pressed to her bosom.

"Well, there they lie together: the dead and the living," said Mrs.
Strawberry. "'Tis a piteous sight. I wish they were both bound to the
one place. We'll have no good of this love-sick girl; and I have some
fears myself of her brutal brother and the father of the brat. I hear
his voice: they are home. Well, they may just step up, and look at their
work. If this is not murder, I wonder what is?"

With a feeling of more humanity than Mrs. Strawberry was ever known to
display, she arranged the coarse pillow that supported Mary's head, and
softly closing the door, descended the step-ladder that led to the
kitchen; here she found Godfrey and Mathews in close conversation, the
latter laughing immoderately.

"And he took the bait so easily, Godfrey? Never suspected that it was
all a sham? Ha! ha! ha! Let me look at the money. I can scarcely believe
my own senses. Ha! ha! ha! Why, man, you have found out a more
expeditious method of making gold than your miserly uncle ever knew."

"Aye, but I have not his method of keeping it, Bill; but you may well
laugh. This proud boy is in our toils now. I have him as sure as fate. I
must say that I felt a slight pang of remorse when I saw him willing to
dare so much for me; and he looked so like my father, that I could
almost have fancied that the dead looked through his eyes into my soul.
I have gone too far to recede. What must be, must be; none of us shape
our own destinies, or some good angel would have warned Anthony of his
danger."

"What the devil has become of Mary?" said Mathews, glancing round the
kitchen. "She and I had some words last night; it was a foolish piece of
business, but she provoked me past endurance. I found her dressed up
very smart just at nightfall, and about to leave the house. I asked her
where she was going so late in the evening. She answered, 'To hear the
Ranters preach in the village; that she wanted to know what they had to
say to her soul.' So I cursed her soul, and bade her go back to her
chamber, and not expose her shame to the world; and she grew fierce, and
asked me tauntingly, who it was that had brought her to that shame, and
if I were not the greater sinner of the two; and I st