ough no one else does?"

"Poor child--I do--as I hope--"

"The blood again. You've done it now," exclaimed Goody Grace. "Away with
you!"

Peter fairly dragged her out, while the women attended to Stead.

But he let her wait outside till they heard, "Not dead, but not far from
it."

CHAPTER XXII. EMLYN'S TROTH.

"Woman's love is writ in water,
Woman's faith is traced in sand."
AYTOUN.

Day after day Steadfast Kenton lingered between life and death, and
though the external wound healed, there was little relief to the deeper
injury which could not be reached, and which the damps and chills of
autumn and winter could only aggravate.

He could move little, and speak even less; and suffered much, both from
pain and difficulty of breathing, as he lay against sacks and pillows
on his bed, or sat up in an elbow chair which Mrs. Elmwood lent him.
Everybody was very kind in those days of danger. Mrs. Elmwood let Rusha
come on many an afternoon to help her sister, and always bringing some
posset, or cordial, or dainty of some sort to tempt the invalid. Goody
Grace, Mrs. Blane, Dame Oates, Nanny Pierce vied with each other in
offers of sitting up with him; Andrew, the young miller, came out of his
way to bring a loaf of white bread, and to fetch the corn to be ground.
Peter Pierce, Rusha's lover, and more old comrades than Patience quite
desired, offered their services in aiding Ben with the cattle and
other necessary labours, but as the first excitement wore off, these
volunteers became scantier, and when nothing was to be heard but "just
the same," nothing to be seen but a weak, wan figure sitting wrapped
by the fire, the interest waned, and the gulley was almost as little
frequented as before. Poor Ben's schooling had, of course, to be given
up, and it was well that he was nearly as old as Stead had been when
they were first left to themselves. Happily his fifteen months of study
had not made him outgrow his filial obedience and devotion to the less
instructed elder brother and sister, who had taken the place of the
parents he had never known. Benoni, child of sorrow, he had been named,
and perhaps his sickly babyhood and the mournful times around had tended
to make him a quiet boy, without the tearing spirits that would have
made him eager to join the village lads in their games. Indeed they
laughed at him for his poverty and scholarship, and called him Jack
Pr