These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though he heard it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejaculated for her sake a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief--and the old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father, again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was she dancing in her happiness as before; and, that her father might hear she was obeying him, singing a song. "For five years every Sabbath have I attended divine service in your chapel--yet dare I not call myself a Christian. I have prayed for faith--nor, wretch that I am, am I an unbeliever. But I fear to fling myself at the foot of the cross. God be merciful to me a sinner!" The old man opened not his lips; for he felt that there was about to be made some confession. Yet he doubted not that the sufferer had been more sinned against than sinning; for the goodness of the stranger--so called still after five years' residence among the mountains--was known in many a vale--and the Pastor knew that charity covereth a multitude of sins--and even as a moral virtue prepares the heart for heaven. So sacred a thing is solace in this woeful world. "We have walked together, many hundred times, for great part of a day, by ourselves two, over long tracts of uninhabited moors, and yet never once from my lips escaped one word about my fates or fortunes--so frozen was the secret in my heart. Often have I heard the sound of your voice, as if it were that of the idle wind; and often the words I did hear seemed, in the confusion, to have no relation to us, to be strange syllablings in the wilderness, as from the hauntings of some evil spirit instigating me to self-destruction." "I saw that your life was oppressed by some perpetual burden; but God darkened not your mind while your heart was disturbed so grievously; and well pleased were we all to think, that in caring so kindly for the griefs of others, you might come at last to forget your own; or if that were impossible, to feel, that with the alleviations of time, and sympathy, and religion, yours was no more than the common lot of sorrow." They rose--and continued to walk in silence--but not apart--up and down that small sylvan enclosure overlooked but by rocks. The child saw her father's distraction--no unusual sight to her; yet on each recurrence as mournful and full of fear as if seen for the first time--and pretended to be playing aloof with her face pale in tears.