of the moors. She lived in a hovel thatched with reeds, and this was
the poorest and the last of all the houses, and stood quite by itself
among broom and whins by the wayside.

From the doorway the girl could look across the wild stretches of the
moorland; and that was pleasant enough on a summer day, for then the
air is clear and golden, and the moor is purple with the bloom of the
ling, and there are red and yellow patches of bracken, and here and
there a rowan tree grows among the big grey boulders with clusters of
reddening berries. But at night, and especially on a winter night, the
darkness was so wide and so lonely that it was hard not to feel afraid
sometimes. The wind, when it blew in the dark, was full of strange and
mournful voices; and when there was no wind, Mary could hear the cries
and calls of the wild creatures on the moor.

Mary was fourteen when she lost her father. He was a rough idle
good-for-nothing, and one stormy night on his way home from the tavern
he went astray and was found dead in the snow. Her mother had died
when she was so small a child that Mary could scarcely remember her
face. So it happened that she was left alone in the world, and all she
possessed was a dog, some fowls, and her mother's spinning wheel.

But she was a bright, cheerful, courageous child, and soon she got from
the people of the village sufficient work to keep her wheel always
busy, for no one could look into her face without liking her. People
often wondered how so rude and worthless a fellow could have had such a
child; she was as sweet and unexpected as the white flowers on the bare
and rugged branches of the blackthorn.

Her hens laid well, and she sold all the eggs she could spare; and her
dog, which had been trained in all sorts of cunning by her father,
often brought her from the moors some wild thing in fur or feathers
which Mary thought there was no harm in cooking.

Her father had been too idle and careless to teach her anything, and
all that she could recollect of her mother's instruction was a little
rhyme which she used to repeat on her knees beside the bed every night
before she went to sleep.

And this was the rhyme:

_God bless this house from thatch to floor,_
_The twelve Apostles guard the door,_
_And four good Angels watch my bed,_
_Two at the foot and two the head._
_Amen._

[Illustration: "_And four good Angels watch my bed_"]

Though she was all alone in the