rs of
utterance were palsied--her tongue quivered--her lips separated yet
there came forth no voice, no sound to break the silence of oppressed
nature. Her eyes moved mechanically towards the heavens--they were dark
as the earth; had God deserted her?--would he deny one ray, one little
ray of light, to lead her to her child? Why did the moon cease to shine,
and the stars withhold their brightness? Should she never again behold
her boy, her first-born? Her heart swelled, and beat within her bosom.
She shivered with intense agony, and leaned her throbbing brow against
the door-post, to which she had clung for support. Her husband's words
rang in her ears--"One by one shall your children be taken from you to
serve my purposes!" Through the dense fog she fancied that he glared
upon her in bitter hatred--his deep-set eyes flashing with demoniac
fire, and his smile, now extending, now contracting, into all the varied
expressions of triumphant malignity! She pressed her hand on her eyes to
shut out the horrid vision, and, a prayer, a simple prayer, rose to her
lips. Like oil upon the troubled waters, it soothed and composed her
spirit. She could not arrange, or even remember, a form of words; but
she repeated, again and again, the emphatic appeal, "Lord, save me, I
perish!" until she felt sufficient strength to enable her to look again
into the night. As if hope had set its beacon in the sky, calmly and
brightly the moon was now shining upon her cottage. With the sudden
change, at once the curse and blessing of our climate, a sharp east
wind had set in, and was rolling the mist from the canopy of heaven.
Numerous stars were visible, where, but five minutes before, all had
been darkness and gloom. The shadow passed from her soul; she gazed
steadily upwards; her mind regained its firmness; her resolve was taken.
She returned to her bed-room, dressed, and, wrapping her cloak closely
to her bosom, was quickly on her way to the Smiths' dwelling, on
Craythorpe Common.

The solitary hut was more than two miles from the village; the path
leading to it broken and interrupted by fragments of rocks, roots of
furze, and stubbed underwood, and, at one particular point, intersected
by a deep and brawling brook. Soon after Grace had crossed this stream,
she came in view of the cottage, looking like a misshapen mound of
earth; and, upon peering in at the window, which was only partially
lined by a broken shutter, Covey, the lurcher, uttered,