"Oh! my father, my father!" she cried within her heart, "why must I stand here in darkness looking at you? why cannot I go in to you, like other daughters to their father? why do you not love your child?" Her heart seemed full to bursting; her eyes overflowed, her breathing was broken by sobs, and in the simple and pathetic words of Scripture, she turned away her head, and raised her voice and wept aloud. Rachel Gray was the daughter of the grey-headed carpenter by a first wife; soon after whose death he had married again. Mrs. Gray was his second wife, and the mother of his youngest daughter. She was kind in her way, but that was at the best a harsh one. Rachel was a timid, retiring child, plain, awkward, and sallow, with nothing to attract the eye, and little to please the fancy. Mrs. Gray did not use her ill certainly, but neither did she give her any great share in her affections. And why and how should a step-mother have loved Rachel when her own father did not? when almost from her birth she had been to him as though she did not exist--as a being who, uncalled for and unwanted, had come athwart his life. Never had he, to her knowledge, taken her in his arms, or on his knee; never had he kissed or caressed her; never addressed to her one word of fondness, or even of common kindness. Neither, it is true, had he ill-used nor ill-treated her; he felt no unnatural aversion for his own flesh and blood, nothing beyond a deep and incurable indifference. For her, his heart remained as a barren and arid soil on which the sweet flower of love could never bloom.