y I knew the cause, for Gwenny called me, and I ran, and
found my darling quite unable to say so much as, 'John, how are you?'
Between the hunger and the cold, and the excitement of my coming, she
had fainted away, and lay back on a chair, as white as the snow around
us. In betwixt her delicate lips, Gwenny was thrusting with all her
strength the hard brown crust of the rye-bread, which she had snatched
from me so.

'Get water, or get snow,' I said; 'don't you know what fainting is, you
very stupid child?'

'Never heerd on it, in Cornwall,' she answered, trusting still to the
bread; 'be un the same as bleeding?'

'It will be directly, if you go on squeezing away with that crust so.
Eat a piece: I have got some more. Leave my darling now to me.'

Hearing that I had some more, the starving girl could resist no longer,
but tore it in two, and had swallowed half before I had coaxed my Lorna
back to sense, and hope, and joy, and love.

'I never expected to see you again. I had made up my mind to die, John;
and to die without your knowing it.'

As I repelled this fearful thought in a manner highly fortifying, the
tender hue flowed back again into her famished cheeks and lips, and a
softer brilliance glistened from the depth of her dark eyes. She gave me
one little shrunken hand, and I could not help a tear for it.

'After all, Mistress Lorna,' I said, pretending to be gay, for a smile
might do her good; 'you do not love me as Gwenny does; for she even
wanted to eat me.'

'And shall, afore I have done, young man,' Gwenny answered laughing;
'you come in here with they red chakes, and make us think o' sirloin.'

'Eat up your bit of brown bread, Gwenny. It is not good enough for
your mistress. Bless her heart, I have something here such as she never
tasted the like of, being in such appetite. Look here, Lorna; smell it
first. I have had it ever since Twelfth Day, and kept it all the time
for you. Annie made it. That is enough to warrant it good cooking.'

And then I showed my great mince-pie in a bag of tissue paper, and I
told them how the mince-meat was made of golden pippins finely shred,
with the undercut of the sirloin, and spice and fruit accordingly and
far beyond my knowledge. But Lorna would not touch a morsel until she
had thanked God for it, and given me the kindest kiss, and put a piece
in Gwenny's mouth.

I have eaten many things myself, with very great enjoyment, and keen
perception of their merits, and