"My maid, I'm very trouble to you to-night."
"No, Gwen, what is it?"
To my surprise, Gwen burst into tears; this unusual sign of emotion
roused me completely.
"Oh! my maid, I'm fearful and troubled, I don't know why. I've set my
heart so on the baby getting his sight. If I could only take him back
seeing to the Squire, I think I could die content."
"Well, Gwen, perhaps you will. Of course, I don't _quite_ believe in
the eye-well as much as you do, but still, who knows?"
"_No_ one knows, Gwladys, that's what's troubling me; the Almighty has
it all hid from us. He may think it good for the baby not to see.
There's sights in this world what ain't right for mortal eyes, perhaps
He have shut up his, to make and keep the little heart all the whiter."
"Perhaps so, Gwen; as you say, God knows best."
"Yes, only I _do_ feel troubled to-night; perhaps 'tis wrong of me to
take the baby to the h'eye-well, but I did pray for a blessing. Eh!
dear, but I'm faithless."
"You are down-hearted anyhow," I said. "Go to bed now and dream that
the baby is kissing you, and looking at you, and thanking you as he
knows how, for getting him his eyesight. Good-night, dear Gwen." But
Gwen did not respond to my good-night, she knelt on by my bedside; at
last she said in a change of voice--
"Gwladys, have you made it up with Owen?"
I was excited by Gwen's previous words, now the sore place in my heart
ached longingly. I put my arms round my old nurse's neck.
"Gwen, Gwen, Owen and I will never understand each other again."
"I feared she'd say that," repeated Gwen, "I feared it; and yet ain't it
strange, to make an idol of the dreaming boy, and to shut up the heart
against the man who has suffered, repented, who will yet be noble!"
"Oh! Gwen, if I could but think it! Will he ever be that?"
"I said, Gwladys," continued Gwen, "that he was coming home to His
Father, he was coming up out of the wilderness of all his sin and folly
to the Father's house, he aren't reached it yet--not quite--when he do,
he will be noble."