et your goods back to-night, if I can. If not,
you hale fellows can rough it, and we'll take the women and children in
till morning--can we not, love?"

"Oh, readily!" said the mother. "Don't cry, my good women. Mary
Baines, give me your baby. Cheer up, the master will set all right!"

John smiled at her in fond thanks--the wife who hindered him by no
selfishness or weakness, but was his right hand and support in
everything. As he mounted, she gave him his whip, whispering--

"Take care of yourself, mind. Come back as soon as you can."

And lingeringly she watched him gallop down the field.

It was a strange three hours we passed in his absence. The misty night
came down, and round about the house crept wailing the loud September
wind. We brought the women into the kitchen--the men lit a fire in the
farm-yard, and sat sullenly round it. It was as much as I could do to
persuade Guy and Edwin to go to bed, instead of watching that
"beautiful blaze." There, more than once, I saw the mother standing,
with a shawl over her head, and her white gown blowing, trying to
reason into patience those poor fellows, savage with their wrongs.

"How far have they been wronged, Phineas? What is the strict law of
the case? Will any harm come to John for interfering?"

I told her, no, so far as I knew. That the cruelty and illegality lay
in the haste of the distraint, and in the goods having been carried off
at once, giving no opportunity of redeeming them. It was easy to grind
the faces of the poor, who had no helper.

"Never mind; my husband will see them righted--at all risks."

"But Lord Luxmore is his landlord."

She looked troubled. "I see what you mean. It is easy to make an
enemy. No matter--I fear not. I fear nothing while John does what he
feels to be right--as I know he will; the issue is in higher hands than
ours or Lord Luxmore's. But where's Muriel?"

For as we sat talking, the little girl--whom nothing could persuade to
go to bed till her father came home--had slipped from my hand, and gone
out into the blustering night. We found her standing all by herself
under the walnut-tree.

"I wanted to listen for father. When will he come?"

"Soon, I hope," answered the mother, with a sigh. "You must not stay
out in the cold and the dark, my child."

"I am not cold, and I know no dark," said Muriel, softly.

And thus so it was with her always. In her spirit, as in her outward
life, so innocent