Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought, Of a great and common sorrow, and words were, needed not. "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown; On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone. One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head; "Lives here Elkanah Garvin?" "I am he," the goodman said. "Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain." And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the fire amain. The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the firelight glistened fair In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark brown hair. Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self I see!" "Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my child come back to me?" "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!" "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away. "And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.' "'When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all. "'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. "'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied; "'And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!' "So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake; As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her sake." "God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh, and He gives; He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!" "Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away, And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, "Let us pray." All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise. But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee, The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie. "What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English Christian's home A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?" Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried: Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died! "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall, As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the dear God watches all!" The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee; "Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's rebuke to me. "Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one. Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son."