302 The Leather Plater. 



himself into the poor girl's hands, and, with the freedom of an old 

 domestic, remained in the room while she read it. But had he 

 only guessed the contents of that unnatural letter, he would not 

 have delivered it for untold gold j for it was rilled with the most 

 bitter invectives and unkind reproaches, and there was not one single 

 sentence in it which carried the slightest ray of hope to the poor 

 girl's blighted heart. But she read every sentence of it from end 

 to end, and, although her eyes were dimmed with tears, not one 

 word in that fatal letter escaped them. When she had finished 

 it, she stood for some moments with compressed lips and heaving 

 bosom, motionless as a statue, gazing on little Annie, who was lying 

 fast asleep on the bed, when all at once the letter dropped from 

 her hand, and lifting her beautiful eyes to heaven, she uttered this 

 simple and heartfelt prayer : " O God, protect my little Annie, for 

 I have no power to help her !" and sank upon the bed in a swoon. 

 And God heard her prayer, for her child's protector stood there by 

 her side ; and that simple, honest groom vowed at the moment that 

 if anything happened to the mother, he would be a father to the 

 child, and he religiously kept his vow. 



Nobody liked Jack Radford ; his appearance was unprepossessing, 

 his manner repulsive, and no one cared to probe beneath that rude 

 surface. Had any one done so, he would have found as kind and 

 true a heart as ever beat, and a religious probity of feeling which 

 would have done honour to the noblest in the land. 



The swoon was succeeded by the most violent hysterics, which 

 lasted for some time, when suddenly she became tranquil. But it 

 was only the lull that precedes the coming storm. Radford and his 

 wife stood by the bedside watching her, when all of a sudden they 

 perceived that the pillow on which her fair cheek rested was satu- 

 rated with blood. In the violence of her paroxysms the poor girl 

 had burst a blood-vessel. No human power could stay that welling 

 tide, and in less than ten minutes the young mother lay a corpse by 

 the side of her infant daughter. 



Radford immediately galloped over to the Hall that he might 

 himself break the sad intelligence to the father. He sent up word 



