Norah had finished her sad story in tears. Neither Ned Franks nor his wife had interrupted the thread of it by a single question; they had sat grave and silent listeners. When all had been confessed, the sailor gently laid his hand on the shoulder of his sobbing niece. His manner was subdued and kind.

"Norah, my girl," he said, "let's be thankful that all was brought to daylight at last. I'd rather have you coming here, even in trouble and disgrace, than seeming to prosper in a course so dangerous to your soul. I only wish that your lady had known all through your own confession, instead of—but let that pass; I trust and believe that henceforth you will always be true as steel, and avoid the slightest approach to deceit all the more carefully because of your sufferings now. I need not say that we will never mention the subject to you again; you are heartily welcome to stay here as long as you will; you'll live, please God, to be a comfort and credit to us yet."

Of course there was much gossip in the village as to the cause of Norah's sudden return. There was a succession of visitors to the school-house on the following day. Many questions were put to Ned Franks and Persis, by those who were more curious than kind, as to the cause of Norah's so unexpectedly leaving her place. Both husband and wife maintained a resolute silence; they made no evasions, threw out no hints to mislead.

"People need not trouble themselves about my niece's concerns," was Ned's rather impatient remark when hard pressed for an answer to some impertinent question. "She has come to us for quiet and peace, and no one shall annoy her whilst she is under my roof."

Of course curiosity was not satisfied nor gossip silenced in Colme. Some of the neighbors guessed that Norah had done something very foolish or wrong; some that she had had a disappointment in love; but as no one had the means of proving the truth of his guesses, it might be hoped that curiosity would at last die out like a fire unsupplied with fuel. To be exposed to painful remarks, to be viewed with some suspicion, was the heavy but just penalty which Norah must make up her mind to pay for her sin.

There were other subjects of interest at that time to divide the attention of the gossips of Colme,—the illness of the carpenter Stone, and the accident to Sands's wife, being constant topics of conversation. Day after day the cottagers saw the poor clerk plodding on his weary way to the town to visit his suffering Nancy. He looked neither to the right nor the left, nor even stopped to speak to a neighbor, and there was always the same unvarying expression of dull care on his sallow face. On Sundays alone his duties as clerk made it impossible for the anxious husband to go to the hospital at B——; and then, as the miller observed, Sands always looked at church like a condemned man, hearing the sermon preached before his own execution.

John Sands was not the only person to visit poor Nancy in the hospital at B——. Several times, at considerable inconvenience, Persis, with her babe in her arms, found her way to the ward, cheering it by her presence, like one of the rays of sunshine which streamed through the window to brighten the couch of pain. And more often yet, Mr. Leyton came to visit the poor afflicted member of his flock, who no longer scorned to listen to his words. The shyness of the young curate wore off in the presence of suffering and sin; he forgot himself in his work. Nancy, at first a silent, gloomy listener, began at last to look forward to the minister's visits. Mr. Leyton was wont to bring fruit to the sufferer during her tedious illness, and flowers from the vicar's gardens; but it was not this alone that made his visits welcome. Nancy, during the long, sleepless days and wearisome nights, had much time for thinking; her mind also was clear, for she had no longer the power to procure the fatal stimulants which had so nearly been her ruin. There was no sudden change in the violent, high-tempered woman; but influences were at work upon her, which, like the morning shower and the evening dew, were gradually softening the hardened soil so that it might receive the word of truth.

And so passed the month of April, that month of mingled sunshine and shower, when the fruit-trees burst into blossom, and the groves into music. To Persis and Ned it was a very happy and very busy time. They watched their own little blossom opening under the sunshine of their love, and felt that for them life had a new interest and delight. Poor Norah, who was in very low spirits, tried to hide her sadness, that she might throw no shadow over the cheerful home of the Frankses.

And in the meantime work proceeded briskly in Wild Rose Hollow. Never did nobleman, building a proud mansion for himself, watch the progress of its erection with more pleasure than did Ned Franks the repairing—with some almost rebuilding—of the old thatched dwellings. He threw his heart and soul into the work, and infected even the money-making miller with some of his own enthusiasm. We usually take an interest in that which has cost us a sacrifice, and the more men do for any cause the more they are apt to be ready to do. Pleasant to the ears of Bat Bell were the sounds of labor from the direction of the almshouses which his money was helping to restore. He sometimes would take his little Bessy to the spot to see the one-armed sailor and his boys hard at work,—and a goodly quantity of straw for thatching found its way from the mill. Bat Bell had begun to taste the luxury of doing good; he was realizing the truth of that divine declaration, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Ned Franks, on his way to Wild Rose Hollow, had daily to pass the cottage of Sands and the workshop of Stone the carpenter. The door of the first was always closed, and the place wore an air of desolation and neglect, which often drew a sigh from the kind-hearted sailor. It was equally sad to him to pass the empty shop, to hear no more from it the sound of the hammer or saw, or the whizzing hum of the lathe, mingled perhaps with snatches of jovial song. Ben Stone was so well known in the village where he had spent all his days that his illness could not but cause a blank there. The portly form, so familiar to all, was missed from the accustomed place in church; the voice, rather loud than tuneful, from the music of the hymns in which it had so constantly joined. The responses of Ben Stone had been almost as clearly heard as those of the clerk. Even the children of Colme missed the sight of the carpenter in his Sunday clothes, with his wife, rather showily dressed, resting on his strong arm, as with his big prayer-book in hand he used to walk through the porch into the church-yard with a smile or a nod, or a cheerful greeting to every one whom he met, all being his neighbors, and many his friends. Ben Stone was a man who had known very little of trouble, and even when trouble had come, it had no more rested on his soul than rain on a sloping roof. He had hitherto been prosperous, healthy, and strong; and though a kind husband to a wife who often was sickly, Stone never let his easy serenity of soul be disturbed by the pains and aches of his partner. Now, illness, serious and sudden, had come upon himself, and the question was, how would he bear it? The trial would not be sharpened by poverty, for Stone had, as he was wont to say, laid by for a rainy day, and his wife had money of her own. He was in no distress for the necessaries, nor even for the comforts of life; but how would the carpenter bear to have his working-days brought to so unexpected a close? Above all, how would he look forward to the great change which was slowly and painlessly, but not the less surely, approaching? Would not the current of a life, lately so smooth and shallow, become both rougher and more deep when near the point where the great final leap must be made, and the small concerns, the petty interests of this life, be swept away into eternity's ocean?