"Mrs. Fortescue!" repeated the boy eagerly and gladly, and his cap was off his head in a moment, and the bright sunshine streamed on a face of such remarkable beauty, and withal so familiar, that though the lady bent eagerly forward to address him, emotion so choked her voice that the lad was enabled to reply to her inquiry, and direct the coachman to the only inn of the village, and they had driven off before words returned. The boy looked eagerly after them, then desiring one of his companions to meet the lady at the inn, and guide her to the cottage, caught up his little vessel, and darted off across some fields which led by a shorter cut to the same place. It was a very humble dwelling, so surrounded by hills that their shadow always seemed to overhang it: yet within, the happy temper of a poor widow and her daughter kept up a perpetual sunshine. Three weeks previous to the evening we have mentioned, a lady and two children had arrived at Llangwillan, unable to proceed farther from the severe indisposition of the former. They were unattended, and the driver only knew that their destination was Swansea; he believed they had been shipwrecked off Pembroke, and that the poor lady was very ill when she commenced her journey, but the curious inquiries of the villagers could elicit nothing more. Mr. Myrvin, with characteristic benevolence, devoted himself to insuring, as far as he could, the comfort of the invalid; had her removed from the inn to Widow Morgan's cottage, confident that there she would at least be nursed with tenderness and care, and so near him as to permit his constant watchfulness. But a very few days too sadly convinced him, not only that her disease was mortal, but that his presence and gentle accents irritated instead of soothed. Ill-temper and self-will seemed to increase with the weakness, which every day rendered her longing to continue her journey more and more futile. It was some days before she could even be persuaded to write to the relative she was about to seek, so determined was she that she would get well; and when the letter was forwarded, and long before an answer could have been received (for twenty years ago there were no railroads to carry on epistolary communication as now), fretfulness and despondency increased physical suffering, by the determined conviction that she was abandoned, her children would be left uncared for. In vain Mr. Myrvin assured her of the impossibility yet to receive a reply, that the direction might not even have been distinct enough, for her memory had failed her in dictating it; she knew she was deserted, she might have deserved it, but her Edward was innocent, and it was very hard on him. As self-will subsided in physical exhaustion, misery increased. A restless torturing remembrance seemed to have taken possession of her, which all the efforts of the earnest clergyman were utterly ineffectual to remove. She would not listen to the peace he proffered, and so