And snatching in a sort of breathless rage Her daughter's headgear comb, let down the hair

Upon her like a sudden waterfall, Then drew her drenched and passive by the arm

Outside the hut they lived in. When the child

Was running in her feet and killing the ground;

The white roads curled as if she burnt them up,

The green fields melted, wayside trees fell back

To make room for her. Then her head grew vexed;

Another devil to damn, than such a look), Oh, mother!' then, with desperate glance to heaven,

'God, free me from my mother,' she shrieked out,

'These mothers are too dreadful.' And, with force

As passionate as fear, she tore her hands Like lilies from the rocks, from hers and his,

after her;

She heard the quick pants of the hills behind,

Their keen air pricked her neck: she had lost her feet,

Could run no more, yet somehow went as fast,

The horizon red 'twixt steeples in the east So sucked her forward, forward, while her heart

Kept swelling, swelling, till it swelled so big

It seemed to fill her body,-when it burst And overflowed the world and swamped the light;

And now I am dead and safe,' thought
Marian Erle-

She had dropped, she had fainted.
As the sense returned,
The night had passed-not life's night.
She was 'ware

Of heavy tumbling motions, creaking wheels,

The driver shouting to the lazy team That swung their rankling bells against her brain,

While, through the wagon's coverture and chinks,

The cruel yellow morning pecked at her Alive or dead upon the straw inside,— At which her soul ached back into the dark

down the steep,

Away from both-away, if possible,

As far as God,-away! They yelled at her,

wagoner

Had found her in a ditch beneath the

moon,

and left

That heap of misery at the hospital.

She stirred; the place seemed new and strange as death.

The white strait bed, with others strait and white,

Like graves dug side by side at measured lengths,

And quiet people walking in and out With wonderful low voices and soft steps And apparitional equal care for each, Astonished her with order, silence, law. And when a gentle hand held out a cup, She took it, as you do at sacrament, Halfawed, half melted,-not being used, indeed,

To so much love as makes the form of love And courtesy of manners. Delicate drinks And rare white bread, to which some dying eyes

Were turned in observation. O my God, How sick we must be, ere we make men just!

I think it frets the saints in heaven to see
How many desolate creatures on the earth
Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship
And social comfort, in a hospital,
As Marian did. She lay there, stunned,
half tranced,

And wished, at intervals of growing

sense,

She might be sicker yet, if sickness made The world so marvellous kind, the air so hushed,

And all her wake-time quiet as a sleep; For now she understood (as such things were)

How sickness ended very oft in heaven Among the unspoken raptures :-yet more sick,

And surelier happy. Then she dropped her lids,

And, folding up her hands as flowers at night,

To talk about her as already dead,'And one was proud 'and if her sweetheart Luke Had left her for a ruddier face than hers (The gossip would be seen through at a glance)

Sweet riddance of such sweethearts— let him hang!

time.

She lay and seethed in fever many weeks, But youth was strong and overcame the test;

Revolted soul and flesh were reconciled

an end.'

And while they talked, and Marian felt the worse

For having missed the worst of all their wrongs,

Or ever I sucked milk, and so is lost. My mother sold me to a man last month, And so my mother's lost, 'tis manifest. And I, who fled from her for miles and miles,

As if I had caught sight of the fire of hell Through some wild gap (she was my mother, sir),

It seems I shall be lost too, presently, And so we end, all three of us.'

'Poor child,' He said,-with such a pity in his voice,

'Tis simple that betrayal by mother's love Should bring despair of God's too. Yet be taught,

He's better to us than many mothers are, And children cannot wander beyond reach

Of the sweep of His white raiment. Touch and hold!

And if you weep still, weep where John was laid

While Jesus loved him.'

'She could say the words,' She told me, ' exactly as he uttered them A year back, since in any doubt or dark They came out like the stars, and shone on her

With just their comfort. Common words, perhaps ;

The ministers in church might say the same;

But he, he made the church with what he spoke,

The difference was the miracle,' said she.

Then catching up her smile to ravishment, She added quickly, 'I repeat his words, But not his tones: can any one repeat The music of an organ, out of church? And when he said "poor child," I shut

my eyes

To feel how tenderly his voice broke through,

As the ointment-box broke on the Holy feet

To let out the rich medicative nard.'

She told me how he had raised and rescued her

With reverent pity, as, in touching grief, He touched the wounds of Christ,—and made her feel

More self-respecting. Hope, he called, belief

In God, work, worship,-therefore let us pray!

And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, And keep it stainless from her mother's face,

He sent her to a famous sempstress-house Far off in London, there to work and hope.

With that, they parted. She kept sight

of Heaven,

But not of Romney. He had good to do To others: through the days and through the nights

She sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped sometimes,

And wondered, while along the tawny light

She struck the new thread into her needle's eye,

How people without mothers on the hills Could choose the town to live in !-then she drew

The stitch, and mused how Romney's face would look,

He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk.

Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,

For otherwise they'll starve before they die,

That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,

I'll thank you for the scissors. The old

crone

Is paralytic-that's the reason why Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath,

Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!

Why, Marian Erle, you're not the fool to cry?

dress,

You piece of pity!'

Marian rose up straight, And, breaking through the talk and through the work,

Went outward, in the face of their surprise,

To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life Or down to death. She knew, by such

an act,

All place and grace were forfeit in the house,

Whose mistress would supply the missing hand

With necessary, not inhuman haste, And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues :

She could not leave a solitary soul To founder in the dark, while she sate still

And lavished stitches on a lady's hem As if no other work were paramount. 'Why, God,' thought Marian, 'has a missing hand

This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.

Let others miss me! never miss me, God!'

So Marian sate by Lucy's bed, content With duty, and was strong, for recompense,

To hold the lamp of human love arm-high To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,

Until the angels, on the luminous side