of him, nor stretch forth to meet his embrace; whose inarticulate,
yet most eloquent cooings might haunt him in his dreams, but would
never more be heard in waking life again! And by the dead babe,
almost as utterly insensate, the poor mother had fallen in a merciful
faint--the slandered, heart-pierced Nest! Owen struggled against the
sickness that came over him, and busied himself in vain attempts at
her restoration.

It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came home, little
dreaming of the sight that awaited him; but though stunned, he was
able to take more effectual measures for his poor daughter's recovery
than Owen had done.

By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, and was placed in
her own little bed in a darkened room, where, without ever waking to
complete consciousness, she fell asleep. Then it was that her
husband, suffocated by pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his
hand from her tightened clasp, and printing one long soft kiss on her
white waxen forehead, hastily stole out of the room, and out of the
house.

Near the base of Moel Gest--it might be a quarter of a mile from Ty
Glas--was a little neglected solitary copse, wild and tangled with
the trailing branches of the dog-rose and the tendrils of the white
bryony. Toward the middle of this thicket a deep crystal pool--a
clear mirror for the blue heavens above--and round the margin floated
the broad green leaves of the water-lily, and when the regal sun
shone down in his noonday glory the flowers arose from their cool
depths to welcome and greet him. The copse was musical with many
sounds; the warbling of birds rejoicing in its shades, the ceaseless