brought him out his
money and jewels, and told him she had thought it safest to take charge
of them.

He thanked her cavalierly, and offered her a diamond ring.

She blushed scarlet, and declined it; and even turned a meekly
reproachful glance on him with her dove's eyes.

* * * * *

He had a suit of russet made, and put away his fine coat, and forbade
any one to call him "Your worship." "I am a farmer, like yourselves,"
said he; "and my name is--Thomas Leicester."

* * * * *

A brain fever either kills the unhappy lover, or else benumbs the very
anguish that caused it.

And so it was with Griffith. His love got benumbed, and the sense of his
wrongs vivid. He nursed a bitter hatred of his wife; only, as he could
not punish her without going near her, and no punishment short of death
seemed enough for her, he set to work to obliterate her from his very
memory, if possible. He tried employment: he pottered about the little
farm, advising and helping,--and that so zealously that the landlord
retired altogether from that department, and Griffith, instead of he,
became Mercy's ally, agricultural and bucolical. She was a shepherdess
to the core, and hated the poor "Packhorse."

For all that, it was her fate to add to its attractions: for Griffith
bought a _viol da gambo_, and taught her sweet songs, which he
accompanied with such skill, sometimes, with his voice, that good
company often looked in on the chance of a good song sweetly sung and
played.

The sick, in body or mind, are egotistical. Griffith was no exception:
bent on curing his own deep wound, he never troubled his head about the
wound he might inflict.

He was grateful to his sweet nurse, and told her so. And his gratitude
charmed her all the more that it had been rather long in coming.

He found this dove-like creature a wonderful soother: he applied her
more and more to his sore heart.

As for Mercy, she had been too good and kind to her patient not to take
a tender interest in his convalescence. Our hearts warm more to those we
have been kind to, than to those who have been kind to us: and the
female reader can easily imagine what delicious feelings stole into that
womanly heart when she saw her pale nursling pick up health and strength
under her wing, and become the finest, handsomest man in the parish.

Pity and admiration,--where these meet, love is not far behind.

And then thi