“It does please me, my child; but, indeed, I am sure that there are worse parsons than those who take part in the homely sports of their parish, rude though some of these sports may be. I wonder if your ears are open to the speech--the divine music of such a morn as this.” “I love the morning, sir--the smell of the flowers and the meadows--the lilt of the birds.” “You have felt that they bring gladness into our life? I knew that your child's heart would respond to their language--they speak to the heart of such as you. And for myself, my thought when I found myself drinking in of all the sweet things in earth and air and sky--drinking of that overflowing chalice which the morning offered to me--my thought--my yearning was for such a voice as that which I heard come from everything about me on this Spring morning. 'Oh, that a man might speak to men in the language of this morn!' I cried.” There was a long pause. His eyes were looking far away from her. He seemed to forget that he was addressing anyone. She, however, had not taken her eyes off his face. She saw the light that came into it while he was speaking, and she was silent. It seemed to her to speak just then would have been as unseemly as to interrupt at one's prayers. But in another moment he was looking at her. “You surely are one of the sweet and innocent things of this dewy morn,” said he. “And surely you live as do they to the glory of God. Surely you were meant to join in creation's hymn of glory to the Creator!” She bent her head and then shook it. “Nay,” said he, “you will not be the sole creature to remain dumb while the Creator is revealing Himself in the reanimation of His world after the dark days of Winter, when the icy finger which touched everything seemed to be the finger of Death!” His voice had not the inflection of a preacher's. She did not feel as if he were reading her a homily that needed no answer. But what answer could she make? She was, indeed, so much a part of the things of Nature that, like them, she could only utter what was in her heart. And what was in her heart except a consciousness of her own unworthiness? “Ah, sir,” she murmured, “only last night had I for the first time a sense of what I should be.” His face lit up again when she spoke. His hands clasped, mechanically as it seemed. “I knew it,” he said in a low voice, turning away his head. “I was assured of it. When my horse cast his shoe I felt that it was no mischance. I heard the voice of a little child calling to me through the night. No doubt crossed my mind. I thank Thee--I thank Thee abundantly, O my Master!” Then he turned to Nelly, saying: “Child, my child, we are going the same way. Will you give me permission to walk by your side for the sake of company?” “Nay, sir, will not you be weary a-walking?” she said. “'Tis a good three mile to the Port, and the road is rough when we leave the valley.”