clean; saintliness in the enforced attention which she gave to Keziah’s rambling stories of her pigs and her chickens, her mother’s ailments, Jenny’s shortcomings in the matter of sweepings and savings, Tim’s wastefulness in the garden over the kailrunts, and the hardships of life on a lone woman left with only a huzzy to look after her; saintliness in the repression of that proud, fastidious self to which Keziah’s familiarity and snuff, Jenny’s familiarity and disorder, the smell of the peat—­which was the only fuel they burnt—­reeking through the house, and the utter ugliness and barren discomfort of everything about, were hourly miseries which she would once have repudiated with her most cutting scorn; saintliness in the repression of that self indeed at all four corners, and the resolute submission to her burden because it was her fitting punishment.

So the sad days wore on, and the fell-side air had not yet brisked up Emmanuel’s adopted daughter as his sister prophesied.  Indeed, she seemed slighter and paler than ever, and if possible more submissive to her lot and more taciturn.  And as her intense quietude of bearing suited Miss Gryce, who could not bear to be fussed, and time proved her douce and not fashious, she became quite a favorite with her rough-grained hostess, who wondered more and more where Emmanuel had picked her up, and whose bairn she really was.

Her only pleasure was in wandering over the fells, whence she could see the tops of the Derwentwater mountains, and from some points a glimpse of blue Bassanthwaite flowing out into the open; where mountain-tarns, lying like silver plates in the purple distance, were her magic shows, seen only in certain lights, and more often lost than found; whence she could look over the broad Carlisle plain and dream of that day on the North Aston moor when she first met Edgar Harrowby; and whence the glittering strip of the Solway against the horizon made her yearn to be in one of the ships which she could dimly discern passing up and down, so that she might leave England for ever and lay down the burden of her life and her sorrow in mamma’s dear land.

So the hours passed, dreary as Mariana’s, and hopeless as those wherein we stand round the grave and know that the end of all things has come.  And while North Aston wondered, and Alick mourned, and Edgar repented of his past folly with his handsome head in Adelaide’s lap, Leam Dundas moved slowly through the shadow to the light, and from her chastisement gathered that sweet grace of patience which redeemed her soul and raised her from sin to sanctity.

CHAPTER XL.

LOST AND NOW FOUND.