And thus it was that, on this night, after consoling the idle sorrows of an indulged child, Rachel, sitting in solitude, found the weight of her own grief almost intolerable. Like all shy and nervous persons, she was deeply excitable. Anger she knew not; but emotions as vehement, though more pure, could trouble her heart. And now she was moved, and deeply moved, by a sense of injustice and of wrong. Her father wronged her-- perhaps he knew it not; but he wronged her. "God Almighty had not given him a child, she felt, to treat it thus, with mingled dislike and contempt Were there none to receive his slights and his scorn, but his own daughter?" She rose, and walked up and down the room with some agitation. Then came calmer and gentler thoughts, moving her heart until her tears flowed freely. Had she not failed that day--had she not been too cold in her entreaties, too easily daunted by the first rejection? Had she but allowed her father to see the love, deep and fervent, which burned in his daughter's heart--he would not, he could not so coldly have repelled and cast her from him. "And why not try again?" murmured an inner voice; "the kingdom of Heaven is taken by storm--and what is the kingdom of Heaven, but the realm of love?" At first, this seemed a thought so wild, that Rachel drew back from it in alarm, as from an abyss yawning at her feet. But even as our looks soon become familiar with images of the wildest danger, so the thought returned; and she shrank not back from it. Besides, what had she to lose? Nothing! With a sort of despair, she resolved to go and seek Thomas Gray, and attempt once more to move him. "If he rejects me now," she added, inwardly, "I shall submit, and trouble him no more." The hour was not late; besides, in her present mood, the timid Rachel felt above fear. She was soon dressed--soon on her road. This time neither annoyance nor evil befell her. She passed like a shadow through crowds, and like a shadow was unheeded. The night was dark and dreary; a keen wind whistled along the streets--but for either cold or darkness Rachel cared not. Her thoughts flowed full and free in her brain; for once, she felt that she could speak; and a joyful presentiment in her heart told her that she would, and should be heard--and not in vain.