s
others as I can't--and I won't, either.'

'But, Sylvie, yo' pray to be forgiven your trespasses, as you
forgive them as trespass against you.'

'Well, if I'm to be taken at my word, I'll noane pray at all, that's
all. It's well enough for them as has but little to forgive to use
them words; and I don't reckon it's kind, or pretty behaved in yo',
Philip, to bring up Scripture again' me. Thou may go about thy
business.'

'Thou'rt vexed with me, Sylvie; and I'm not meaning but that it
would go hard with thee to forgive him; but I think it would be
right and Christian-like i' thee, and that thou'd find thy comfort
in thinking on it after. If thou'd only go, and see his wistful
eyes--I think they'd plead wi' thee more than his words, or mine
either.'

'I tell thee my flesh and blood wasn't made for forgiving and
forgetting. Once for all, thou must take my word. When I love I
love, and when I hate I hate; and him as has done hard to me, or to
mine, I may keep fra' striking or murdering, but I'll niver forgive.
I should be just a monster, fit to be shown at a fair, if I could
forgive him as got feyther hanged.'

Philip was silent, thinking what more he could urge.

'Yo'd better be off,' said Sylvia, in a minute or two. 'Yo' and me
has got wrong, and it'll take a night's sleep to set us right. Yo've
said all yo' can for him; and perhaps it's not yo' as is to blame,
but yo'r nature. But I'm put out wi' thee, and want thee out o' my
sight for awhile.'

One or two more speeches of this kind convinced him that it would be
wise in him to take her at her word. He went back to Simpson, and
found him, though still alive, past the understanding of any words
of human forgiveness. Philip had almost wished he had not troubled
or irritated Sylvia by urging the dying man's request: the
performance of this duty seemed now to have been such a useless
office.

After all, the performance of a duty is never a useless office,
though we may not see the consequences, or they may be quite
different to what we expected or calculated on. In the pause of
active work, when daylight was done, and the evening shades came on,
Sylvia had time to think; and her heart grew sad and soft, in
comparison to what it had been when Philip's urgency had called out
all her angry opposition. She thought of her father--his sharp
passions, his frequent forgiveness, or rather his forgetfulness that
he had even been injured. All Sylvia's persistent or endurin