s so pathetically simple, or how
shall I express it? He was a seer, not a prophet--yes, I told you that
before. But seers are quite different, they don't know themselves so
well, they have absolutely no vanity. Heavens, how I longed to go and
take off his cuffs! One could see that he was not accustomed to wear
them: some one must have told him that it would not do to make a speech
from a platform without cuffs on. He had crumpled and tumbled them;
they had come unfastened, or perhaps never had been fastened; they got
in the way and slipped over his hands. He struggled with them. There
was something wrong about the waistcoat too; it was buttoned wrong, I
believe, and puckered up at one side, so that it showed one of his
braces--to me at any rate, where I sat looking at him sideways and with
the light full upon him. Ah, that mighty creature with the stooping
head! The tears rose in my eyes. Who would not have been willing to
follow him?

"I felt as deeply as it could be felt that _he must be helped_. I did
not know that I was to help him; I only knew that he must be helped and
sustained."

A rush of memory so overpowered her that she could not go on, she
turned away.

PART III

The daughter saw her mother in a new light. Surely this was not she who
ordered and managed her house, who sent wise letters to her, with
earnest, well-weighed words! How her passion had transfigured and
beautified her!

"But how did you feel, dearest mother?"

"I was not conscious of what I felt. We went away from there the day
after, and our next halting-place was close to his two farms. I had my
wits so far about me, however, that when some of us had to be quartered
out, I chose the house which was nearest his. And when the tempest
within me was no longer to be resisted I wrote to him, without signing
my name. I asked him for an interview. He was to meet me on the road
that went through his wood, between his house and ours. I dropped the
letter into his own letter-box on the road. You can imagine what a
state I was in when I tell you that I had appointed ten o'clock in the
evening, as I thought that then it would be dark! I had not noticed
that it was still light at that time, so far north had we come. The
result was that I did not dare to go out until eleven, and then I was
sure there would be no one to meet. But there he was! Mighty and
stooping, his hat pressed together in his hand, he came forwa