roken a great light--a light from above.

II.

THE TWO MOTHERS.

The royal repose of death reigned over the features of little Job
as his mother entered the kitchen of the Granny Houses Farm. She
had been summoned from Rehoboth by a collier, fleet of foot, who,
as soon as the injured boy was brought to the pit-bank, started
with the sad news to the distant village. No sooner did the woman
catch the purport of the news, than she ran out wildly into the
snowy air--not waiting to don shawl or clogs, but speeding over
the white ground as those only speed who love, and who know their
loved ones are in need.

A wild wind was blowing from the north, and the fleecy particles
fell in fantastic whirls and spirals, to drift in treacherous
banks over the gullies and falls that lay along the path; while
here and there thin black lines, sinuous in their trend, told
where moorland waters flowed, and guided the hurrying mother to
her distant goal. The groaning trees, tossed by the tempest, flung
off showers of half-frozen flakes, that falling on her flaming
cheeks failed to cool the fever of her suspense, while the
yielding snow beneath her feet became a tantalus path, delaying
her advance, and seeming to make more distant her suffering child.

Ploughing her way through the Green Fold Clough, she climbed the
steeps at the further end, and stood, breathless, on the bank of
the great reservoir that lay dark in the hollow of the white
hills. Her heart beat savagely and loud--so loud that she heard it
above the din of the storm; and cruel pain relentlessly stabbed
her heaving side, while her breath was fetched in quick
respirations.

As she thus stood, tamed in her race of love by the imperative
call of exhausted nature, Dr. Hale loomed through the snowy haze,
and, reading instinctively who she was and whither she was bound,
proffered his assistance for the remaining half of the journey.

He had not walked with her for many yards before he saw her
exposed condition. Her hair was flying in frozen tresses about her
unshawled bosom, and no outer covering protected her from the
chill blast.

'Mrs. Wallwork,' said he, 'you ought not to be crossing the moors
a night like this, uncovered as you are. You are tempting Nature
to do her worst with you, you know.'

'Ne'er heed me, doctor. It's mi lad yon aw want yo' to heed. I
shall be all reet if he's nobbud reet. I con walk faster if yo'
con,' and so saying, the jaded woman spran