m one to the other. "'Twas my little maid as
I was a-thinkin' on when I did lie on that there wold stretcher what I
did think I should never leave again. I did think o' she and wonder
what 'ud become o' she if doctor couldn't make a job o' me. Come here,
Tilly. You be daddy's little sweetheart, bain't ye?"

The child ran to him, and climbed upon his knee, and he passed his
hand proudly through her mass of yellow curls.

"See here, mate; plenty o' hair here now."

He gathered up the thick locks half absently, twisting them clumsily
into a kind of knot, and, throwing back his head, surveyed her
pensively for a moment; then he kissed her just at the nape of the
neck, and let the curls drop again with a sigh.

Mrs. Baverstock's beady eyes became momentarily dim; she did not
possess by nature a very large amount of intuition, but love is a
wonderful sharpener of wits.

"Dear, yes," she said. "She be the very pictur' of her mother." Then,
suddenly bursting out laughing and clapping her hands together, "So
that were the girl ye left behind ye!"

[Illustration: THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM
'So that were the girl ye left behind ye']

ELLENEY

Mrs. McNally's house was situated at the extreme end of the village,
and looked not upon the street, but right out into the glen, so that
when Elleney opened her attic window in the morning her blue eyes
feasted on a wilderness of trees, exquisite at this season with an
infinite variety of tints; for the tender bloom of an Irish spring is
only surpassed in beauty by the glories of an Irish autumn. The
undulating masses that would in October glow with a myriad fires were
now clad in the colours of the opal, delicate pinks and blues and
greys of yet unopened buds forming a background to the pure vigorous
green of larch or chestnut in full leaf, while here and there a group
of wild cherry-trees--trees which in a few months would be clothed in
the hues of the sunset--caught the morning light now on raiment as
snowy as the summit of the Jungfrau.

Elleney gazed, and rubbed big eyes yet heavy with slumber, and gazed
again; then she heaved a deep sigh, half of rapture, half of regret.

"It's beautiful, entirely," she said. "An' that big black hill at the
back o' the trees is the grandest ever I seen. But I'd sooner be
lookin' out at the little green hills at our own place, with me poor
father--the Lord ha' mercy on his soul!--walkin' about on them."

She passed her hand across