to the terrified and weeping woman who waited for it, and too late lavished upon it the tenderness and care for lack of which he had died.
"He was always good to me,—always good to me; and Philip has gone too," moaned she, over and over again; for, weak in all else, this pooir, pale woman was very strong in loving, and mourned herself into her grave not many months after her stern and absolute lord.
The next morning a stout horse paced merrily to the door of Judith Hazel's hovel, and from his back sprang Philip Randall and Bethiah his wife.
These were days before telegraph, post-office, or active communication of one town with another; so that no rumor of yesterday's tragedy had wandered from Plymouth to Kingston, and the young people had come to make their confession, and to bid farewell to the old mother, if not gayly, at least cheerfully, for the light of the new day, risen upon their lives, was strong enough and rosy enough to hide, or at least to overlay, all ugly things of yesterday; and Philip, with Beth at his side, could forgive her mother for the part she had unconsciously played in his quarrel with his father,—could even forgive her, almost, for being Bethiah's mother, and had already explained to his attentive wife how generous he intended to be toward her after he had earned the fortune they neither of them doubted was awaiting him.
The door was fastened; and after Bethiah had gone round to the brook door at the back, and found
