e, 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
cheery words, Amanda went down into the valley of the shadow.
Seldom speaking, save to reiterate the statement that she had come
home to die, and that all was dark, she lay anticipating the hour
when, as she said, 'the great God would punish her according to
her sins.' This idea had taken fast hold of her mind: she was
going to hell to burn for ever and for ever, and she would only
get her deserts; she had sinned--she must suffer.

With the strain of constant watching, and the long hours of
solitude, and the nightmare of her girl's damnation hanging over
her yearning heart, the poor mother's condition verged on madness,
until at last she summoned courage to ask Mr. Penrose to call and
drop some crumbs of his Gospel of comfort and love at the bedside
of her child; for, as she said to Mrs. Lord, 'even the dogs eat of
the crumbs that fall from the master's table.' The truth was that
hitherto Mr. Penrose had not cared to risk the scandal which he
knew would be created in the village by a visit on his part to
Amanda Stott. When, however, he received his summons from the
mother, and a sharp reprimand from Dr. Hale, who told him that a
minister was as free to visit without risk to his character as a
doctor, he resolved to throw aside proprieties and obey the call.

As Mr. Penrose was walking up Pinner Brow, towards the house of
Mrs. Stott, he unexpectedly met Amos Entwistle, the senior
superintendent of the Sunday-school, and known to the children as
'Owd Catechism,' because of his persistent enforcement of the
Church tenets on their young minds.

'Good a'ternoon, Mr. Penrose. And what may bring yo' in this
direction