and the fields beyond, to the sea, whose every aspect she knew so well.
Not a boat or sail broke its silvery surface, even there the spell of
Sabbath stillness seemed to reign. She thought of the chapel with its
gallery thronged with smiling lads and lasses; she thought of Will
sitting bolt upright at church. Yes; decidedly the dullness was
depressing; but suddenly a brightening thought struck her. Why should
she not hunt up the old Bible which Ann said was too bad to leave
about? What could Gethin have written in it that was so wicked? She
remembered him only as her friend and companion, and her willing slave.
She was only a child when he left, but she had not forgotten the burst
of bitter wailing which she sent after him as he picked up his bundle
and tore himself away from her clinging arms, and how she had cried
herself to sleep that night by Sara's side, who had tried to pacify her
with promises of his speedy return. But he had never come, and his
absence seemed only to have left in his father's memory a sense of
injury, as though he himself had not been the cause of his boy's
banishment. Even Ann and Will, who had at first mourned for him, and
longed for his return, appeared to have forgotten him, or only to
regard his memory as a kind of sorrowful dream. Why, she knew not, but
the thought of him on this quiet Sunday afternoon filled her with
tender recollections. She opened every dusty book in the glass
bookcase, but in vain. Here was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"; and
here a worm-eaten, brown stained book of sermons; here were Williams of
"Pantycelyn's" Hymns and his "Theomemphis," with Bibles old and new,
but _not_ the one which she sought. Mounting a chair, and from thence
the table, she at last drew out from under a glass shade, covering a
group of stuffed birds, a dust-begrimed book, with a brass clasp and
nails at the corners. Dusting it carefully she laid it on the table
before her, and proceeded to decipher its faded inscriptions. Yes--no
doubt this was the book for which she had sought, and with a brown