thesay.

"Miss, folk say you're a good woman. Dun ye know aught o' these
things--canna ye tell me if I shall meet my poor lad again?"

And then Olive, casting one glance at Mr. Gwynne, who remained
motionless, sat down beside the childless father, and talked to him
of God--not the Infinite Unknown, into whose mysteries the mightiest
philosophers may pierce and find no end--but the God mercifully
revealed, "Our Father which is in heaven"--He to whom the poor, the
sorrowing, and the ignorant may look, and not be afraid.

Long she spoke; simply, meekly, and earnestly. Her words fell like balm;
her looks lightened the gloomy house of woe. When, at length, she left
it, John Dent's eyes followed her, as though she had been a visible
angel of peace.

It was quite night when she and Harold wont out of the cottage. The snow
had ceased falling, but it lay on every tree of the forest like a white
shroud. And high above, through the opening of the branches, was
seen the blue-black frosty sky, with its innumerable stars. The keen,
piercing cold, the utter stirlessness, the mysterious silence, threw a
sense of death--white death--over all things. It was a night when one
might faintly dream what the world would be, if the infidel's boast were
true, and _there were no God_.

They walked for some time in perfect silence. Troubled thoughts were
careering like storm-clouds over Olive's spirit. Wonder was there, and
pity, and an indefined dread. As she leaned on Mr. Gwynne's arm, she had
a presentiment that in the heart whose strong beating she could almost
feel, was prisoned some great secret of woe or wrong, before which she
herself would stand aghast. Yet such was the nameless attraction which
drew her to this man, that the more she dreaded, the more she longed to
discover his mystery, whatsoever it might be. She determined to break
the silence.

"Mr. Gwynne, I trust you will not think it presumption in me to have
spoken as I did, instead of you; but I saw how shocked and overpowered
you were, nor wondered at your silence."

He answered in the low tone of one struggling under great excitement.
"You noticed my silence, then?--that I, summoned as a clergyman to give
religious consolation, had none to offer."

"Nay, you did attempt some."

"Ay, I tried to preach faith with my lips, and could not, because there
was none in my heart. No, nor ever will be!"

Olive looked at him uncomprehending, but he seemed to shrink from her
ob