and given to a hired woman! She started to her feet, and hurried on. The
boy was no light weight, and she had things to carry besides, which her
love said he could not do without; yet before seven o'clock she had
cleared some sixteen miles, in a line from Mortgrange as straight as she
could keep.

She thought she must now be near a village whose name she knew; but she
dared not show herself lest some advertisement might reach it after she
was gone, and lead to the discovery of the route she had taken. She
turned aside therefore into an old quarry, there to spend the day,
unvisited of human soul. The child was now awake, but still drowsy. She
gave him a little food, and ate the crust she had saved from her tea the
night before. During the long hours she slept a good deal by fits, and
when the evening came, was quite fit to resume her tramp. To her joy it
came cloudy, giving her courage to enter a little shop she saw on the
outskirts of the village, and buy some milk and some bread. From this
point she kept the road: she might now avail herself of help from cart or
wagon. She was not without money, but feared the railway.

It is needless to follow her wanderings, always toward London, where was
her husband, and her home. A weary, but happy, and almost no longer an
anxious woman, she reached at length a certain populous suburb, and was
soon in the arms of her husband.




CHAPTER IV.