But it was only for a moment. Christmas could not relent; his long-cherished pride in being a man of his word could not so easily be conquered. He lashed himself up into more bitter anger against Easter for this momentary weakness. She might pinch and starve, for him. It was a strange sort of religion that set a daughter at variance against her father; and those who preached it might provide for those who believed them. He would not suffer it, or any one who professed it, in his house—no, not for a day. He would let Easter know that if she would humble herself, and promise, even now, to have done with these new notions, he would take her and her boy home again. But never—he looked across at his father's and grandfather's graves as he swore it—never should any canting nonsense be spoken under his roof! Easter was reluctant to come back to her native village, but there was no one else to wait upon and nurse her aged mother-in-law. It was harder work than any one supposed to live on eight shillings a week; what had been just enough for one was far too little for three. Easter hoped that it would be possible to get a little needlework from some of the neighbours' wives; if not, she must take to field-work, and go out weeding and hoeing with the poorest of the villagers. There proved to be very little work for her needle; so Easter might be seen going out to the fields early in the morning on those days when her mother was well enough to take care of little Chrissie: for she had called her boy after her father, both because she loved the old name and because she cherished a secret hope that he would own him as his grandson. But that hope slowly yet surely died away as year after year passed by, and no sign was given by Christmas Williams that he ever saw his daughter. He could not but see her almost daily about the village, and he could not go to his meadows without passing the little cottage where she and her baby dwelt. He saw her plainly enough: the sad girlish face, worn with sorrow and hard times, that gazed at him with beseeching eyes. He had sent his message to her, and she had answered firmly that she could not go back from professing her faith in Christ. The first time they met after that, Easter turned pale, nearly as pale as her dead mother had been when he saw her last in her coffin; and she had uttered, in the same clear yet faint voice as that in which her mother had breathed good-bye, the one word "Father!" Christmas heard her as distinctly as if the word had been shouted in his ear, but he passed on in silence with a heavy frown upon his face; though in his heart of hearts there was a secret hope that she would run after him, and catch him by the arm, and hang about his neck, and not let him go—let him speak as roughly as he might—until she had forced him to be reconciled to her. If Easter had but known!