flowers. So all might be for the best. The incident might warn him against experiments at a later time, when he could neither get off so easily as regards punishment, nor be able with so little effort to disentangle his own misplaced affections. That lad, as a man, would be a dangerous lover. Happily Griffith was warned. And so was David.

And then the matter gradually died out of his mind. But not so out of the minds of others. David had not told Israel, but resolved even in the most cruel anguish of his hurts he never should be told. But his heart failed him of its purpose to conceal the matter also from his mother. He opened the door, biting his lips to keep his mouth shut. But as he shut the door and went in, nature became paramount, and the intended secret burst forth amid a passion of tears, his face crimson and dark with shame.

The mother's first impulse was to rush out and seek the assailant. And when David, seeing her so moved, quieted her by quieting himself, even then the poor, spiritless, broken-down woman was stirred to such new life by the sight of the livid purple weals across her boy's loins as she undressed him, and applied some soothing lotion to the sores, that she wanted to go and seek Israel, and not even wait for his return at the ordinary hour.

David soon convinced her that for everybody's sake it would be best to say nothing. Nest would like that, he was sure. So would Mrs. Griffith, who was always very kind to him. And as to himself, the idea of the public knowing what had happened, was too dreadful even to be thought of.

'I am a great coward, mother,' said David. I shrieked when he first struck me, but I do think I could let him lash me again, very badly, if only he promised to tell no one. It was Nest's being there that hurt me most. And that,' said the boy, with sudden violence-and yet with tears streaming down his cheeks—that I'll never forgive him, never!'

As to Israel, they could take no counsel from him. Both instinctively shrank in horror from the mere thought.

They knew well that, however little he might be able to sympathise with David's sufferings and sensitiveness, he would feel that the greatest possible outrage had been committed upon him-Israel himself, and that the measures he might take in consequence would destroy every chance of future reconciliation.

While David was yet shrinking with the acute pain at every touch of his mother's careful, but not exactly skilful hand, there came a soft knock at the door.

'Cover me up, mother. Oh, don't, don't let anybody see or know!'

David did not for the moment feel sure that it was not Nest outside.

While Mrs. Mort hastily strove to obey him, the door was gently opened; and, to the astonishment of both, Mrs. Griffith Williams stood on the threshold.

David was too far undressed to be able to follow his first impulse-to run away upstairs; so he drew around him hurriedly and shamefacedly the garment nearest to his hand-his little jacket-but his mother pulled it away, and courtesying with a strange mingling of respect and defiance, and her pale face visibly reddening, said, as she pointed to David's back

'Oh, please come in, ma'am, and see your husband's doings! Look at him! Look at my boy's back!' And therewith she began to cry.

'Oh, my dear good David!' cried out, with impetuous heart, the squire's wife, as she put her arms round him and kissed him, remaining quite unaware of the torture she was inflicting on David; while he, coward as he said he was, bore these pangs heroically, and smiled, as he in response clasped his arms round her neck, and kissed her, and said

6 Oh, it don't matter! Please tell Nest I don't care a bit about it now-no, not a bit!'

Mrs. Griffith Williams again kissed him, and said

'I could not rest till I had seen you and your mother, and told you how grieved I am, and how wretched my little darling is. In fact, to tell the truth, it is she has almost driven me here, unknown to her father. She's

such a sensitive child, Mrs. Mort. I'm often afraid I shall never rear her. She's quite ill now, and her father is in much trouble about her, and many things besides. But there, I mustn't begin talking-about things, too, that he says I don't understand. But that's nonsense! For if one doesn't understand at my age, I wonder when I shall! I must run back now. I wouldn't for the world have Griffith know I am out.'

She had left David's side a little, but returned now, and whispered to him-

'My darling was so hurt about the flowers, that I promised to bring you one. There it is, a yellow rose. Now kiss me. Good-bye. Good-bye, Mrs. Mort. Only a little secret betwixt David and me. You are to ask no questions, mind.'

Mrs. Mort could only respond in a similar spirit. And with mutual expressions of hope in some future and brighter day to come, when something good might happen, the nature of which neither appeared to like to speak of, or in any way to define, they separated.

As to David, vain indeed would be the attempt to picture his delight as he held Nest's gift-the beauteous rose-in his fingers, and smelt it, and turned it round, and studied it in every possible aspect, and wondered if there ever had been such a flower in existence before.

But now arose a new difficulty. The boy was obviously unfit to go to work next morning. Yet how tell Israel so? David's whole system was shaken. He needed rest, freedom from aught that might still further inflame his sores, and constant attention to alleviate them. The mine was just about the very worst place in the whole world the lad could go to under such circumstances; and the mere thought of David's working in it, with all its inevitable bodily difficulties of motion-its stoopings, and crawlings, and unnatural postures, made his mother shiver, and cry

out

'No, David, that mustn't be thought of! But then what shall be said to your father? If I tell him you are unwell, and think of some naturally sufficient excuse, he

won't take my word for it, nor will he rest till he has found us out; and then he'll say we are deceiving him, and be very hard on us.'

David thought, and winced, and thought again, and once more winced; then remembered his rose, which had been already deposited in a slender phial filled with water, and placed within his reach. He smelt at that, and made up his mind.

'I shall go to the mine to-morrow, mother."
'No, no, David.'

In one aspect of the matter it was a pity Israel did not, at the close of that trying day for poor David, know the truth; for to a certainty he would have been moved, and perhaps for the first time in his life, into active sympathy with and better understanding of his son. For here one of Israel's little secrets may be let out. It was, then, one of his objects, in dealing so sternly with David, to wring out of him those weak elements in his character which with Israel were such objects of contempt: namely, the lad's sensitiveness and gentleness, which had something feminine in them, and the ulterior uses or value of which Israel knew nothing, guessed nothing.

CHAPTER XVII.

MRS. JEHOSHAPHAT'S CORDIAL.

THERE was one person who wonderfully enjoyed these differences between Israel and his former employer-however unpleasant they might be to the parties themselvesand that was Mrs. Jehoshaphat.

It was as good as a play, she more than once told the former, to have him come and sit by her bed-side, and

narrate every incident, however slight, and as far as possible repeat every word that had been said.

He had to show his wound-for Israel had hurt his hand against the dog's teeth, through the force of the blow; he had to repeat what this lawyer had said, and what that one had answered. He had to tell how Griffith looked at certain critical moments, and how the two men faced one another when they next met, and so on.

And then came the trophies of the double victory. She exulted at the sight of the cheque for 750l. for commission, which she made him bring for her to see before he opened his account with it at the Leath Bank. She was still more deeply gratified when, at a later day, she read the memorandum Griffith Williams had been obliged to give, unsaying all his bitter charges that he had cast broadside through the neighbourhood.

I say, Israel Mort,' she almost shouted out to him, after the perusal of this document, her eyes gleaming with humour and delight, 'you are a very dangerous man to have dealings with! Very. I don't think I am quite safe. Do you? You have done me once, you know, and in the same transaction that has put out our friend the Squire so much. Perhaps I ought to have joined with him in the attack on you. Assailed at once in the van and the rear, and on both flanks, where would you have been? Eh?'

6

I ain't time, ma'am,' was Israel's response, for fighting with imaginary difficulties. It's hard work enough, I assure you, to deal with the real ones-I mean the mine, which is in an awful state. How Mr. Jehoshaphat managed to sleep at nights for thinking of it, passes me.'

"Why shouldn't he? You slept of nights, didn't you? and you were always in far greater danger than he, who seldom went below. He was too good a judge!'

'Miners, ma'am, carry their lives in their hands so long, they forget at last they have 'em there. But the property at stake, that's what he cared for, and what I was thinking of. I suppose, however, he had extracted so much from the pit during his long term, that he could at