To look down from this shadowy, cloudy place, already almost dark in the early failing shadows, and see that burnished shield throwing back the light, and all the canopy overhead brilliant with crimson and purple, was a wonderful sight. Dick came up with a sturdy resounding step, but not quickly. Sometimes he would become inaudible, as he crossed "a boggy bit," or took a devious way, crushing the fragrant bog-myrtles beneath his feet. When he arrived at last, he found Elizabeth, with a clean apron on, waiting his arrival for supper. Everything was ready for him. The chickens in their flannel infirmary chirped feebly now and then by the fire. The cat, curious, with a growing interest in the chirpings, purred about, knowing she dared not approach. The old collie, not interested at all, but tolerant, lay, though it was hot, and he felt it so, in front of the fire, which threw a reflected tinge of redness upon his shabby black coat. "I have brought you a letter," Dick said; he did not add who was the writer, but handed it over quickly. It had been lying in the window of the toll-house for two long days, and Elizabeth gave a little cry when she saw the writing. She forgot the supper and Dick's fatigue, and everything but her eldest son, who wrote so seldom. A letter from Abel! there had not been one for--Elizabeth well knew how long. Had not she counted the months and the days? But even to herself she pretended not to know; and the sight of it thrilled her through and through; a flush of sudden colour came to her face, and the water to her eyes. When such an unusual thing as a letter came to Overbeck, it was common that he or she who received it should run it over first, thus getting the cream of novelty and sweetness--then read it aloud. Elizabeth did the first--she read it, devouring the lines: but her countenance changed as she went on, and when she had ended she put it down with some irritation upon the table, and proceeded at once to give Dick his supper. "If it's needful that he should write seldom, he might be pleasant when he writes," she said, with a spasm of disappointment and offence choking her voice. "Is it Abel, mother; and what does he say?" Dick began his supper calmly. He was not so much excited about Abel as to neglect his meal. But Elizabeth was roused out of the common routine altogether. The first morsel she tried to swallow choked her. "I cannot eat," she said, pushing her plate away. "Oh, Dick, one thing I've asked from the Lord; it is, that my bairns should thrive and do well. Me--what do I care for me? I'm willing to work, and if I have daily bread I want no more; but my lads and my lass--my lass, my Lily, the only one I have!" "What is wrong with Lily?" Dick said, looking up with interest. "And what has Abel to do with that?"