flayed, and never gone near
'em.'

'Thaa may thank God as thy lad didn't dee of a fayver. Aw's never
forgeet haa th' measter and I watched and listened to aar lad's
ravin's. Haa he rached aat wi' his honds, and kept settin' up and
makin' jumps at what he fancied he see'd abaat him; and when we
co'd him he never knowed us. Nowe, lass, he never knowed me until
one neet he seemed to come to hissel, and then he looked at me and
said, "Mother!" But it wur all he said--he never spok' at after.'

'Yi; but yo' see'd yur lad dee--and mine deed afore I could get to
him.'

'That is so, lass! but as aw stood an' see'd mine deein', I would
ha' gien onything if I could ha' shut mi een, or not bin wi' him.
I know summat as what Hagar felt when hoo said, "Let me not see
th' deeath o' th' child"--I do so.'

The younger woman wept, and the tears brought relief to her
pent-up heart. She had found a mother's ear for her mother's
sorrow; and the after-calm of a great grief was now falling over
her. She leaned her aching head on the shoulders of the older and
stronger woman by whose side she sat, and at last her sorrow
brought the surcease of sleep. The fire threw its fitful flicker
on her haggard face, lighting up in strange relief the lines of
agony and the moisture of the freshly fallen tears. Now and again
she sobbed in her slumber--a sob that shook her soul--but she
slept, and sleep brought peace and oblivion.

'Sleep on, lass, sleep on, and God ease thi poor heart,' said the
old Granny, as she held the woman's hand in hers. 'Thaa's hed both
thi travails naa; thaa's travailed i' birth, and thaa's travailed
i' deeath, like mony a poor soul afore thee. There wur joy when
thaa brought him into th' world, and theer's sorrow naa he's goan
aat afore his time. Ey, dear! A mother's life's like an April
morn--sunleet and cloud, fleshes o' breetness, and showers o'
rain.'

And closing her eyes, she, too, slept. And in that lone outlying
fold, far away in the snowy bosom of the hills, there was the
sleep of weariness, the sleep of sorrow, and the sleep of death.
And who shall say that the last was not the kindliest and most
welcome?

III.

THE SNOW CRADLE.

As Mr. Penrose and Malachi o' th' Mount closed the door of Granny
Houses on the sorrowing widowed mother, there opened to them a
fairy realm of snow. Stepping out on its yielding carpet of
crystals, they looked in silent wonder at the fair new world,
where wide moors slept