Gladys did not go to bed all that night. If her mistress could have watched her occupations, seen her tears, and listened to her prayers, she would, at least, have known that she was grateful. The first thing she did was to finish a cap that she had been making for her, the next to complete a large piece of ornamental netting, that had been long in secret progress, and had been intended as a present for that dear mistress's birthday on the morrow. The third, last and most difficult, was to write a letter. Gladys usually wrote easily and well. She had been accustomed to assist her father at an early age, and had been carefully taught by her mother, but on the present occasion she considered every sentence with a too painful thoughtfulness, and literally blotted her writing with her tears. Morning was beginning to dawn before she had finished these tasks, and then she washed her face and hands, took off the pretty cotton gown she had on, and put on the one Netta gave her when first she came to Glanyravon. An old straw hat that she had been in the habit of wearing in the fields, and a tidy, but plain shawl, completed her attire. She had a few shillings which Mr Prothero had given her, and these she put into her pocket, together with a pincushion, and a curious foreign shell, gifts of Owen. She thought of Netta, and of her very different flight from the same house; she fancied that if she had been in her place, no lover, however dear, could have prevailed upon her to leave so good a mother; but she was different. An orphan and a beggar, she had no right to remain to cause dissension between father and son. And so she fell upon her knees, and prayed for blessings on every member of that family; she forgot no one, not even poor Owen, whose suit she had rejected. Most especially she prayed that he might be a comfort to his parents, and turn from his wild, wandering ways, to those of rest and sobriety; she particularly used that latter word, which would have sounded formal in less earnest lips.