itered
about the fold and the little blacksmith's shop, whispering mysteriously
whenever Joan had been within hearing. There had been nobody to keep
them to their work, for Nathan was away all day, and did not return till
the late sunset was past and even the loftiest peak of the highest
mountain stood grey and dark against the sky.

Nobody had bade Joan to go to bed, and she was afraid of her little,
lonely, separate room, if Rhoda was not coming back to sleep with her.
Not a single word had Aunt Priscilla spoken to her all the day, and if
the young servant-girl had not given her some bread and a bowl of milk
she would have been left without food, for Aunt Priscilla had not eaten
a morsel, or sat down in the kitchen, since the early morning.

Joan had curled herself up in a corner of the oak settle, which stood as
a screen on one side of the corner fireplace, and had fallen fast asleep
there, when she was aroused by Nathan's voice. He spoke so quietly and
sadly that it did not quite awake her, and her drowsy ears took in the
sound as if he had been talking to some one a long way off. But suddenly
Aunt Priscilla spoke, in a voice so terrible and loud that she woke up
in a fright. Her aunt was standing in the middle of the floor, and the
light from a candle fell upon her face, weary and grey, and drawn into a
frown of stern and passionate anger.

"She shall never enter my doors again!" she exclaimed; "neither she nor
her husband, Evan Price--the worst scamp in the country! I 'll never
forgive her. Deceiving me all these months! Let nobody ever name her
name to me again; she's dead to me for evermore."

"No, no," said old Nathan, sorrowfully; "don't thee harden thy heart
against her, Miss Priscilla. She 's been deceived as well as us, poor,
young, ignorant lass! She does n't know what Evan is yet: a handsome
young raskill, as all the girls make much of. If she repents--and she
will repent, poor creature--thou must pardon her."

"Never!" cried Aunt Priscilla, "not on my death-bed!"

"'Forgive us our sins as we forgive them as sin against us,'" he
answered, in a very mournful and solemn voice.

"I'll never pray that prayer again!" she said fiercely. "I haven't
sinned against the Lord as she's sinned against me. I've never brought
shame and disgrace on Him. The Lord may pardon her, but I can't!"

"Hush!" exclaimed Nathan, "hush! God Himself is hearkening to us. Our
sins against Him are as if we owed Him ten thousand