'What doesto mean?'

'I mean His FORGEETFULNESS.'



II.

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.


While Amanda's return aroused the curiosity of Rehoboth, it drew
few callers to the cottage on Pinner's Brow. Not that the
villagers were all wanting in kindliness, but Amanda's mother,
being a woman of strong reserve, had fenced herself off from much
friendly approach; while the nature of the trouble through which
she was now passing was felt by the rude moorlanders to impose
silence, and deter them from all open signs of sympathy.

Apart from Mrs. Lord and a girl friend or two of Amanda's, the joy
of return was pent up in the heart of the mother--a joy which she,
poor thing, would fain have sought to share with others had not
delicacy of instinct and sense of shame forbade. She felt it to be
indeed hard that she could not go among her neighbours and friends
and say, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my child which was
lost.'

But the mother's joy was also mixed with the alloy of Amanda's
despair. On the day after the return, the girl had taken to her
bed; and despite a mother's love and Mrs. Lord's kind counsel and