rything, broken only by the persistent
ticking of the old clock on the stairs, Morva had noted them all rather
wearily. Even the fowls in the farmyard seemed to walk about with a
more sober demeanour than usual, but more trying than anything else to
an active girl was the fact that _there was nothing to do_.

It was a hot blazing summer afternoon; she had paid frequent visits to
the sick calf, which was getting well and mischievous again, and
inclined to butt at Tudor, so even that small excitement was over, and
the girl came sauntering back under the shady elder tree which spread
its branches over the doorway of the back kitchen. She crossed to the
window, and leaning her arms on the deep sill looked out over the yard,
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 tabl