PONT-Y-PRIDD.
It was a glorious day for the self-taught architect. The hanging woods
on either bank of the river held nearly as many spectators as trees,
whilst along the narrow roads came a motley multitude on foot or
horseback, or in cumbrous, top-heavy leather carriages, drawn by four
horses (less for state than necessity), poor as well as rich having
assembled from all parts to witness the opening of the new bridge that
was to do so much for the county.
'To witness my triumph,' William Edwards phrased it. But then, too much
diffidence was not the family failing. And, for a self-taught man, it
_was_ a triumph.
There was no room for two carriages to pass abreast, but the few there
assembled crossed alternately, the Viscount's prancing horses leading
the way. Then there was a rush of people, mounted and on foot; horses,
ponies, mules, and asses scampering across pell-mell in such wild
confusion and entanglement, amid shouts and untranslatable cries, as
certainly tested the stability of the structure. And such
congratulations greeted the builder as were calculated to turn more
seasoned heads than his.
Davy, full of brotherly pride and affection, had brought his mother on a
pillion behind him; and there, surrounded by her children and her
grandchildren, the old dame, overcome by her emotion in contrasting the
present with the past, and witnessing the great work of her son and his
reception by the gentry, fairly sobbed aloud, the big tears rolling down
her tanned and wrinkled cheeks.
'Name o' goodness, mother, I don't be knowing what you have got to cry
for, whatever. People do be looking at you!' remarked Rhys curtly, on a
hint from Cate.
''Deed, I do be crying for joy. I never expected to be seeing a day like
this.'
'Do leave mother alone, Rhys,' quickly remonstrated Davy in an
undertone. 'Her heart do be full, and it must run over, look you.'
Evan Evans and Ales stood by, dressed in their Sunday best for the great
occasion, a newly-breeched boy by the hand.
'I do be wishing Jane Edwards would not be washing the new bridge with
her tears, Evan--'deed, I do,' whispered Ales to him.
'Ah, yes, it do be a bad baptism,' he echoed, shaking his head, which
had been crammed with superstition on shipboard. 'And I do be hoping the
rain will keep off, for the clouds be gathering over Garth Mountain,
look you.'
The rain did keep off for two or three hours, until long after the
hand-shaking and speech-making were over, and the great people had
dispersed, and all who had not stayed behind to feast were on their way
homewards, thankful they would be able in future to cross the river
dry-shod and out of danger, whatever the hour or the weather, the
'cleverness' of the Widow Edwards' son being on every tongue.
That son, however, had been surfeited with praise, and was moving
amongst the crowds in irritable reaction seeking for some one he failed
to find--some one whose approbation would have o'ertopped the highest.
At last, when he was ready to bite his lips with vexation, a boy, who
came riding hastily from the Cardiff Road, put a letter in his hand, and
lingered as if waiting for an answer.
The writing was Elaine's.
The letter was torn open impatiently.
Only a few blotted words:--
'DEAR FRIEND,--We hear your meritorious work is complete, and send
you our heartfelt greetings; but we are in great trouble, for Uncle
Rosser had a fit last night, and has not spoken since. Aunt is full
of grief. She has sent to Bristol for my cousin, for the apothecary
says uncle cannot live. You will pardon our absence to-day; and
believe me, your sincere well-wisher,
'ELAINE PARRY.'
Two hours later he had left the feasters and was in the saddle, muffled
in a thick riding-coat, speeding on to Cardiff through driving rain and
the darkening shades of evening.
When he drew rein at the baker's door he was too late for all but
consolation. The blind man had opened his long-closed eyes on the
glorious wonders of eternity.
Never had Elaine felt so much the need of his strong arm and
self-reliant individuality as then, in their overwhelming affliction.
His unexpected arrival touched a sensitive chord and broke down the
barriers between them. She sprang towards him, and clung to him weeping,
as she had never done before.
Amazement checked the flow of Mrs. Rosser's tears for the moment; and
when he put out his hand to grasp hers, she too felt there was a strong
friend to rely on in their extremity.
Then was it first observed that he was wringing wet; and in hospitable
cares for the long absent, the first acuteness of pain was something
blunted.
After that, as if he had been Mrs. Rosser's own son, he took all
miserable details off their feminine hands. It was he, too, who met the
daughter--Mrs. Elton--and her Bristolian husband on their arrival, and
broke the distressing intelligence to them.
Death involves changes. No sooner was the dead laid in the earth than
the desirability of the widow's future residence with her daughter was
openly discussed. Consideration for Elaine appeared the only obstacle to
the plan.
'I am quite willing to make a home for my mother-in-law,' said Mr. Elton
in private to Mr. Edwards, with a show of self-complacent liberality,
much as though he patted himself on the back for a praiseworthy
sacrifice, ignoring the savings of years likely to bear her company;
'but I cannot consent to burden myself with the young woman. And she
cannot really expect it. She is no relation of mine or my wife's. She
must look out for a situation. She quite blocks the way to an amicable
adjustment of affairs,' he added irritably.
William speedily removed _that_ block out of their way.
'Do not trouble yourself about Elaine, sir,' put in William stiffly.
'There has been a situation waiting for her over two years.'
Mr. Elton opened his eyes. 'Indeed!'
'Yes, sir. Two years back I pressed her to become my honoured _wife_,
but her strong, sense of duty constrained her to repress her own
inclinations, and send me away wifeless rather than desert her aunt and
uncle in their old age. You can adjust your affairs irrespective of
Elaine Parry, I can assure you. A good home and a loving welcome await
her.'
Mr. Elton was snubbed, and looked it.
In less than three months there was a very quiet wedding at Cardiff, and
Elaine went away with her husband to his farm, midway between his bridge
and the ruined Castle of Caerphilly, where his old mother and Davy
lived, within easy reach of Jonet and her husband. The few houses have
multiplied since then into a village that bears the name of Aber.
At first old Mrs. Edwards felt as if she was to be a second time
deposed. And she expected Elaine's town ways would clash with her
country ones. But when she found that Elaine deferred to her as she had
done to her own aunt, and was desirous to be instructed in all that
pertained to her duties on the farm, there was no word too good for her
'clever son William's clever wife.'
Then she could already knit and spin, and had brought her own wheel, as
well as a shelf of books, and something in hard cash, so that, as Davy
said, she was 'quite an acquisition on the farm.'
William had built the house according to his enlarged ideas of domestic
comfort. There were two storeys, and notwithstanding the very heavy tax
on glass, it shone in every window, and these were of useful size. He
had brought home along with his wife the bureau he had found so useful
for his papers, and kept them and his books in a room set apart for
himself.
With the completion of the bridge, he abandoned to John Llwyd the
cottage he had erected on the river's side, his new furnace work being
within sufficiently accessible distance of the farm, so long as he could
leave his efficient foreman on the spot, and his workmen also. He was
glad then he had erected permanent and commodious houses for the men,
instead of temporary huts, since there was still employment for them
all. Explorations for iron and coal were going on in the vicinity. These
created a fresh demand for labour, and a corresponding demand for roofs
to shelter the newcomers.
As he beheld the new colony of labourers and managers rising up, as it
were, under his auspices, his heart swelled with pride and
self-sufficient inflation.
'Ah, yes,' he would say to his wife, 'this is all my doing. I told Rhys
I would be the greater man. Yes, he must own it now, if he would not
then. Look at my wonderful bridge. It will stand for ever.'
He was saying something of the kind one morning, when his first-born, a
boy he had named David after his brother, was about eighteen months old.
He had the child on his knee at the time.
Elaine had a shuddering dread upon her whenever she heard his boastful
words.
'Yes, William dear,' she said soberly, 'we know your skill is great, but
I wish you would not boast of the stability of your bridge so often. We,
as well as the bridge, are in the hands of the Almighty!'
He put the child down hastily and rose to his feet. 'Surely, Elaine, you
are not going to join the croakers? Rhys told me the other day, "Not to
hold my head so high, for pride was sure to have a fall." Sure, I have a
right to be proud if any one has.'
'_If?_' murmured Elaine under her breath; but he caught the doubtful
word, and, snatching at his hat, strode out of the house angrily.
A thick mantle of snow covered hill and valley, against which the
whitewashed houses looked grey and dingy.
'It do be thawing fast,' said Davy to him as they met at the gate, he
with a spade over his shoulder. 'I do hope the rain will be keeping off
till the snow be all gone. But I don't be liking the looks of the clouds
in the north-west.'
'Why not?' questioned William sharply.
Davy hesitated. 'Well, if the rain do come upon the melting snow, we
shall be having heavy floods.'
'Well, and what then?' snappily.
''Deed, and I do be always thinking of the bridge when the floods come.'
'Pouf! the bridge is safe if a hundred floods come.' And on he went,
ruffled, but wrapped in self-opinionated vanity. He had forgotten George
Whitfield and his Master then.
Nevertheless, he went to take a look at the bridge and the river, on his
way to the new ironworks, where his first furnace was already at work.
'Ah, well,' he thought, 'the water _is_ high; but, pouf! that is no
flood.'
Towards afternoon a thin rain began to fall and liquefy the melting
snow. As the men were leaving work, Llwyd came up to him with an anxious
face and whispered, 'Master, the river do be desperately full, and if'--
William looked as if he could have struck his faithful monitor to the
earth.
Yes, the river was rising and racing through the three arches with the
swiftness of a torrent, surcharged with hay and straw, brushwood and
mould, washed downward in its course, but they swept well under the
bold archways and swirled away in eddies beyond.
'There can be no danger. Those piers are firm enough,' he muttered, as
if to convince himself as well as Llwyd.
Dusk came down and blotted out the scene. In turning away he came upon
Rhys, whose gloomy face it was well he could not see.
Llwyd and Davy too were there, with other watchers who had helped to
rear the bridge.
'Tell Elaine I shall stay with Llwyd to-night,' said William to Davy. It
was his first note of apprehension. Towards midnight he said, 'If the
rain ceases there can be no danger.'
But the rain did not cease. As the night fled and the morning hours
advanced, the winds came howling and tearing like demons down the Taff
Valley, driving the pelting rain before them in a mad hurricane,
fighting for mastery alike with tall green pines and the bare boughs of
elms and gnarled oaks.
Gradually, as lapping waters undermined rocks and rugged banks, already
loosened by frost and melting snows, along many a swollen mountain
stream the surging torrent bore down their tributary reeds and shrubs
and earth, along with riven boughs and uptorn trees, that beat like
battering-rams against the good stone piers, holding their trust so
sturdily. Then, eddying, the mighty current of the mocking Taff swung
the tall fir-trees round and barred the still open arches cross-wise,
one by one. Here, as in a net, the lamentable wreckage of the moors, of
ruined cots and devastated farms, was caught and built up into a dam the
turbid water could neither pass nor wash away. And rising, still rising,
rising swifter than the rising sun, like a gigantic monster playing with
boulder stones for bowls, the resistless river hammered with them
against the parapet, and beat it in. Then, with a tumultuous roar as of
triumph, and a deafening crash that startled sleepers in their beds more
than a mile distant, the bridge that was built for centuries was swept
away into irreparable ruin.
A shriek, as of mortal horror, rose as an echo from the crowded banks.
The three brothers and their friends looked in each other's whitened
faces as the cost of the catastrophe cut keenly into their souls.
Rhys groaned aloud.
'There does never have been such an awful flood since I was born; no
masonry whatever could be standing against it,' cried grey-headed Owen
Griffith, as he leant upon his staff to bear up against the wind.
He had seen the darkening glances cast on the luckless architect, and
interposed to spare him the reproaches of coarse tongues.
'Keep that consolation for those who have run no risk. It will not be
saving Cate and the rest from ruin and beggary, through this braggart
brother of mine and his bridge,' burst from ungovernable Rhys.
'It may _save_ me and you all from ruin,' retorted William defiantly. 'I
have discovered what a flood can do, and what must be guarded against.
Before the term of our guarantee expires, I will span this river with a
bridge no flood shall wash away. 'Deed I will.'
A crowd had gathered. There were mocking voices heard beside Rhys'. A
quarrel and a tumult threatened; for fierce as the war of the elements
was the tempest raging in the breasts of men who had been closest
friends.
'Come away,' cried placable Davy, linking his arm within William's, and
looking round him. 'When the Lord do be speaking men should be silent.
Yes, and before the breath of His nostrils the best man's handiwork will
go down, look you.' And whispering something to his baited brother of
'home' and 'Elaine,' he drew him peaceably away.
_He_ had no word of reproach, though he had staked the savings of his
life, equally with Rhys, and his forbearance silenced others, then and
afterwards.
Nor did any reproaches or taunts meet William at his own fireside.
Rumour had run fleetfooted before them with the disastrous tidings. The
shock had thus been anticipated. Clasping arms and sympathetic words
alone awaited him. 'It is the will of God,' said both mother and wife;
'it is useless to rebel.'
Strange to say, William Edwards was apparently the least cast down of
any. In a day or two he had recovered much of his elasticity. He showed
a brave face to friends and envious foes, and maintained that no man
should forfeit his guarantee. He would replace the wrecked bridge with a
better.
There were men who sneered; there were more who sympathised, for the
rebuilding would be at his own cost, and would sweep away all his former
gains. Yet all friends did not desert him. Mr. Morris and the Viscount
defended him against malicious attacks on 'unqualified pretenders.' No
one could deny the vehement pressure of the terrible flood.
His newer plan, a bridge of _a single arch_, and of a span
unprecedented, was seen and approved.
Workmen were not far to seek. Almost with the subsidence of the waters
labourers were at work removing the still upstanding remains of the old
piers, the tenacity of the masonry giving the undaunted builder fresh
hope.
On fresh foundations another bridge arose, Jonet's husband marvelling at
the measurements supplied for the wooden framework.
'Yes,' said William, whose pride and self-assumption rose as he surveyed
the magnificent proportions of his bridge, 'I defy any flood to beat
that down. Look at its breadth and height! Any volume of water could
sweep under that arch! Yes, indeed, if it brought half a forest down
with it. The piers were the mistake before, Thomas.'
''Deed, yes!' assented the other.
The keystone of the arch had been laid; time had been given for cement
to harden; the wooden framework of the arch was being removed when this
was said; only the parapets were wanting, and on those the men were
beginning.
Another day the last scrap of timber was gone. Rhys had come down
sullenly to the water's edge, weighted by his responsibility, and too
doubtful of his brother's skill to give even his perseverance credit.
There he found Jonet and Elaine, each with an infant in her arms. A few
idlers stood staring and gaping under the trees on the steep banks.
All at once, with no more premonitory shock than a slight tremulous
motion under foot that scared the working masons away, the keystone of
the arch shot up into the air like a ball; the centre of the arch seemed
to rise bodily and press upwards like an inverted V, as if impelled by
superhuman force from the sides; there was a report as of a tremendous
gunpowder explosion, a blinding shower of dust and flying stones
whirling in mid air, a wide gap where a noble structure had been five
minutes before.
Draw a curtain over the scene of the collapse. Close the ears to the
taunts and mockery, the scorn and derisive epithets, which assail the
unfortunate architect wheresoever he goes. Everywhere, save under his
own roof, where wife and mother and Davy combined to shield him. But
only his wife can enter into his feelings, and alleviate his bitter
humiliation. Where he is weak, she is strong, and her very touch is
healing.
[Illustration: ONLY HIS WIFE CAN ENTER INTO HIS FEELINGS, AND ALLEVIATE
HIS BITTER HUMILIATION.--_See page 327._]
Let us follow him into his little private room, and find him on his
knees acknowledging in all humility his self-sufficient dependence on
himself, his proud and confident trust in his own skill, his
forgetfulness of the Lord, omnipotent alike to create and to destroy,
from whom he derived whatever mental superiority he possessed, who had
led him step by step to success, who had spoken to him by the warning
voice of George Whitfield, and at last had broken his stubborn heart,
and, with the thunders of calamity, brought him to acknowledge that,
'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'
Out of that room he walked that day another manner of man.
He was the first to confess that the haunches or side foundations of his
bridge had not sufficient strength to bear the strain of the lofty and
expansive arch he had imposed upon them. But he added, '_Please God_, I
will yet, _with His help_, fulfil my contract, and build a bridge that
shall stand, even if it leave me penniless.'
Fonder was Elaine of her husband in his humility and misfortune than in
the pride of his success.
Davy had always stuck by him. 'He set no store by his bit of money
whatever. William was welcome to every penny, if it was any good.'
Others, richer than Davy, who had held aloof from the 'self-confident
amateur,' as they called him, were moved by his newly-developed modesty,
no less than by his indomitable perseverance and resolution (Rhys called
it obstinacy) in the face of catastrophes that would have overwhelmed
weaker men. And they honoured his integrity. When his fresh plans were
ready, funds to 'assist' were ready also.
Over those plans he had pondered and prayed. Like a flash it came to
his mind that, as the single arch was a strength in masonry, a double
arch--that is, a circle--must have double strength, and on that he
formed his plan, to bind the haunches of his bridge with cylinders of
decreasing sizes, not to narrow his span of arch.
Once more the river-bed was cleared. But on the Sunday, before a stone
of the new bridge was laid, he summoned his workpeople around him in the
Druids' circle, and, standing upon the rocking-stone, he preached to
them from the text, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in
vain that build it,' telling the story of his sudden conversion, of the
failure of his other bridges as providential instruments to save him
from overweening arrogance and self-sufficiency; and wound up with an
exhortation that they should lay every stone as if they laid it before
the Lord, who alone could decide whether this or that man's work was
good or bad.
And so, week by week, as the work went on, Sunday by Sunday he preached
and prayed amongst his men on that Druidical altar, consecrating it
afresh to the living God, and dedicating himself and his life to the
service of Christ.
In like manner, when the last coping-stone was in its place, and his
workmen had gathered up their tools to depart, he knelt down upon the
bridge, and dedicated that with prayer, saying at the last, 'Keep Thy
servant from presumptuous sins. And be the glory Thine, O Lord.'
Thus, in 1755, when William Edwards was but thirty-six, he had completed
his trinity of bridges over the terrible Taff. And there to this day it
stands, fair to see, with the date of its erection upon it, a bridge
with a wider span than the Venetian Rialto--a bridge pierced by three
hollow cylinders on either side, rising gracefully with the magnificent
arch as they decrease in size.[16]
Upon the opening day, apart from the peasantry, the magnates of three
counties flocked to see this wonder of a bridge, and the indomitable man
who had created it, in the face of difficulties that would have daunted
weaker men.
As one by one Welshmen of note bent from horse or carriage to shake
hands with Mr. Edwards and congratulated him on the unrivalled structure
his genius had created, and he was heard to say modestly in reply, 'I
trust, with the blessing of God, _this_ bridge will stand,' even Rhys
admitted that, ''Deed, after all, Willem was a great man,' and Thomas
Williams kept close beside him, as if desirous to share in his
employer's glory.
For Mr. Morris, the staunch friend of William Edwards, there with due
ceremony, breaking a bottle of wine upon the parapet, had named the
bridge 'Pont-y-Pridd'--The Bridge of Beauty.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF BEAUTY, 1755.]
And when the loud acclaim had subsided, the speaker gave as a reason for
the name, not alone the wondrous beauty of the structure, or the new
features the self-trained builder had introduced into
bridge-building, but that out of his failures he had built up an
undoubted success, and out of seeming calamities built up another, if an
unseen bridge, to span the turbulent River of Life and bear him securely
across from this world to a better, the beautiful bridge of humble
reliance on the Almighty Creator and Ruler of the universe.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] The largest is nine feet in diameter.
POSTSCRIPT.
From that day William Edwards' fame as a builder of bridges and smelting
works was assured. But he could see defects in his Bridge of Beauty; the
ascent to the centre was steep and toilsome, and although he was
afterwards called upon to erect bridges, not only in Glamorganshire, but
in Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, he built no more on the same
model.
His handsome three arched bridge over the Teify is pierced with hollow
cylinders over the piers, adding beauty to strength; but in that as in
others he reduced the height with more regard to the useful than the
picturesque.
He was a busy man, working for his family and the community six days a
week, giving the seventh to divine service amongst his people--services
so highly appreciated that in 1756 he was ordained to preach. And he
was never a rich man, he gave so largely of his earnings to the
suffering poor. And though he must have seen towns springing up around
the ironworks he built, and highroads made to connect them, giving
employment to hundreds of workers, he was nevermore heard to boast of
_his_ doings. He knew and owned that the capital of other men had set
his brains and hands at work.
And when at a ripe old age he was laid to rest under the shade of
Eglwysilan Church and its giant yews, he left his well-trained son David
to inherit his fame and his faculty as a bridge-builder. But he never
built a Pont-y-Pridd, and it is with the bridge and town of Pontypridd
William Edwards' name is mainly associated, even by those who never
recognise in him a pioneer of progress, a benefactor to South Wales.
Indeed, since his day, to meet the increasing traffic, a canal has been
cut from Cardiff northward, and the very course of the River Taff
diverted, changing the character of the district I have attempted to
describe as it was in my hero's day. More recently a railroad to meet
the ever-growing demands of ironmasters, colliery owners, and others,
has been constructed, still further changing the face of the country,
now bristling with iron and tin works. A new bridge has, moreover, been
thrown across the river, somewhat higher up the stream, a bridge more in
accord with modern requirements, and which has in a measure superseded
high-pitched Pont-y-Pridd; but the beautiful old bridge is still
standing, a picturesque monument to the memory of its persevering and
pious builder, and a reminder to this self-sufficient generation, so
proud of its own grand doings, that, but for William Edwards and his
bridges and furnaces, progress in South Wales might have slumbered a
generation or more.
THE END.
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH
_A Selection from Books for Girls._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| KEITH'S TRIAL AND VICTORY. By EVELYN
At | EVERETT-GREEN. Illustrated by PAUL HARDY. Gilt edges.
3/6 |
| A well-written story of a young girl of high position, who,
| disappointed in her expectations as an heiress, learns nobly
| her lesson of self-conquest.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
At | CONSTANCIA'S HOUSEHOLD. A Story of the
3/6 | Spanish Reformation. By EMMA LESLIE, Author of "Caught
| in the Toils." Illustrated.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| UNDER THE WAR-CLOUDS. A Tale of 1870. By
At | E. F. POLLARD. With numerous Illustrations. Gilt edges.
3/6 |
| A romance of the Franco-German War, showing how it affected an
| English family resident in Paris. Many of the scenes are drawn
| from the author's own recollections.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| A DIFFICULT DAUGHTER. By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN.
At | Illustrated by PAUL HARDY. Gilt edges.
3/6 |
| The story of a madcap girl in wealthy circumstances, the pranks
| she played, the troubles she created, and the way in which her
| finer qualities gradually triumphed over the spirit of mischief.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
At | MARY MORDAUNT. By ANNIE GRAY. Large, handsome
2/ | volume, gilt top. Illustrated.
| [THE "ENDEAVOUR" LIBRARY.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| HETTY MARTIN'S TRIAL; or, Thorns and Roses.
At | A Story of Home Life. By Mrs. LYSAGHT. Illustrated by
2/ | W. DEWAR. Gilt top. [THE "ENDEAVOUR" LIBRARY.
|
| Showing how two girls and their mother left in poor circumstances
| through the death of the father, who was a farmer, bravely fight
| help life's battle, and find a long-lost relative, who comes to
| their and relief.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| A GIRL GOVERNESS; or, Ella Dalton's Success.
At | By A. E. WARD. Illustrated by EVERARD HOPKINS.
2/ | Second edition.
|
| A story of a young girl who, in controlling and influencing her
| pupil, a self-willed little lad, is led to look up from her old
| self-sufficiency to the true source of strength.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| MARION HARLING'S AWAKENING. A Story of an
At | Eldest Daughter. By EDITH M. EDWARDS. Illustrated by
2/ | SCOTT RANKIN.
|
| Showing how a country minister's daughter lived fretfully in the
| monotony of a dull household, until she learned through bitter
| experience the need for self-subjection in the joy of living for
| others.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
At | THE PILOT'S DAUGHTERS and FAITH HARROWBY.
2/ | By SARAH DOUDNEY.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
| CAUGHT IN THE TOILS. A Story of a Convent School. By EMMA LESLIE.
At | [THE "WONDERFUL SHILLING" SERIES.
1/ |
| Relates the methods employed in a French Convent School to
| pervert two English Protestant girls who were sent there for
| education.
-----+------------------------------------------------------------------
At | THE KING'S DIADEM. By ANNIE GRAY.
1/ | [THE "WONDERFUL SHILLING" SERIES.
|
| Is a story for elder girls, and shows how the heroine gave up
| worldly pleasures to consecrate herself to the Master's work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
London: THE SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, 57 and 59 Ludgate Hill, E. C.