ays you will be making yourself worse, father, standing out in
the cold and damp."

He obeyed the summons; still he could not help every now and then
getting up and going to the door to see what the weather was like; each
time he came back with a less favourable report.

As it grew dark, in spite of his dame's expostulations he again went out
and proceeded to the point, where he was also joined by three or four
men, who had come either to attend to the beacon which was kept burning
on dark nights, or to look out for the fishing-boats which they expected
would at once return in consequence of the bad weather which had now in
earnest set in.

As soon as Michael had left his home, a young girl, the child of a
neighbour who lived further up the harbour in the direction of the mill,
came running to the cottage, saying that her mother was taken ill, and
that as her father and brothers were away fishing, there was no one to
stay with her while she went to call for the doctor.

Nelly at once offered to go and stay with the poor woman, and to do her
best.

"No, I will go," said Dame Lanreath; "maybe I shall be able to tell what
is best to be done as well as the doctor himself. Do you run on, Nancy,
and I will come and look after your mother."

As the dame was not to be contradicted, Nelly continued the work in
which she was engaged, and her grandmother set off with active steps
towards her neighbour's cottage.

Nelly had not been long alone when she heard a hasty footstep
approaching. The door opened, and Eban Cowan stood before her. A dark
frown was on his brow, his eyes she thought had a wild and fierce
expression she had never before seen them wear. Her heart sank within
her, and she in vain tried to speak in her usually friendly tone.

"Good evening, Eban; what brings you here at this hour?" she said, on
seeing him stand gazing at her without uttering a word.

"Nelly, I have come to ask you a question, and as you answer it you will
make me more happy than I have been for many a long day, or you will
send me away a miserable wretch, and you will never, it may be, see me
again."

"I shall be sorry not to see you again, Eban, for we have been friends
from our earliest days, and I hoped that we should always remain so,"
answered Nelly, mustering all the courage she possessed to speak calmly.

"That is what drives me to desperation," he exclaimed. "Nelly, is it
true that you are going to marry Michael Penguyne?"