Jonathan Prothero, and in opening the hearts of the
sisters-in-law towards each other. Mrs Jonathan forgot her cousin, Sir
Philip Payne Perry, and helped to nurse, and learned to love her humbler
connection, whilst the ever-ready tenderness of the simple farmer's
wife, sprung up to respond to it like a stream leaping in the sunlight.
Gladys, too, reaped the reward of her devotion, in the increased
kindness of Mr Prothero, who began to forget the Irish beggar in the
gentle girl whose care, under God, had saved his wife's life; and so, as
is usually the case, affliction had not come from the ground, but had
fallen like a softening dew upon the irritated feelings of the
afflicted, and bound heart still nearer to heart.

Perhaps in the younger and more impetuous natures it had done almost too
much. Thoughtless of consequences, they had all worked to save a life,
valuable to so many. Rowland, Owen, Miss Gwynne, Miss Hall, Gladys, had
been thrown together at a time when the formalities of the world and the
distinctions of rank are forgotten, and the tear of sympathy, the word
of friendly comfort, or the pressure of the hand of kindly feeling are
given and taken, without a thought of giver or receiver. But they are
remembered, and dwelt upon in after years as passages in life's history
never to be obliterated--never to be forgotten.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HEIRESS.

Glanyravon Park lay, as we have said, in the parish of which Mr Jonathan
Prothero was vicar, but as the parish and park were large, the house was
three or four miles from the church; and it was on account of this
distance of Glanyravon and its dependencies from church and school, that
Miss Gwynne had induced her father to build the school-house, of which
mention has been already made, since there was a large school in the
village for such children as were within its reach. She would have had
him build a small church also, and endow it, to remove all excuse, as
she said, from the chapel-goers; but this was an undertaking too mighty
for him. However, the school flourished wonderfully, both on week days
and Sundays, and Miss Gwynne always filled every corner of an omnibus in
which the servants went to church with such of the children as could not
walk so far. Miss Hall was an admirable assistant to the school-mistress
during the week; and Gladys, with Mrs Prothero's permission, undertook
the Sunday duty for the mistress, in order that she might have a holida