Does he say that I must go? Will he never speak to me again?
I will just throw myself into the mill-race and have done with it."
Her sister bade her to rise and dress herself, but to remain where
she was. It could not be expected, she said, but that their father
would be hard to persuade. "I know that he will kill me when he sees
me," said Carry.

At eight o'clock Fanny took the old man his breakfast to the mill,
while Mrs. Brattle waited on Carry, as though she had deserved all
the good things which a mother could do for a child. The miller sat
upon a sack at the back of the building, while the hired man took his
meal of bread and cheese in the front, and Fanny remained close at
his elbow. While the old man was eating she said nothing to him. He
was very slow, and sat with his eyes fixed upon the morsel of sky
which was visible through the small aperture, thinking evidently of
anything but the food that he was swallowing. Presently he returned
the empty bowl and plate to his daughter, as though he were about at
once to resume his work. Hitherto he had not uttered a single word
since she had come to him.

"Father," she said, "think of it. Is it not good to have mercy and to
forgive? Would you drive your girl out again upon the streets?"

The miller still did not speak, but turned his face round upon his
daughter with a gaze of such agony that she threw herself on the sack
beside him, and clung to him with her arms round his neck.

"If she were such as thee, Fan," he said. "Oh, if she were such as
thee!" Then again he turned away his face that she might not see the
tear that was forcing itself into the corner of his eye.

She remained with him an hour before he moved. His companion in the
mill did not come near them, knowing, as the poor do know on such
occasions, there was something going on which would lead them to
prefer that he should be absent. The words that were said between
them were not very many; but at the end of the hour Fanny returned to
the house.

"Carry," she said, "father is coming in."

"If he looks at me, it will kill me," said Carry.

Mrs. Brattle was so lost in her hopes and fears that she knew not
what to do, or how to bestow herself. A minute had hardly passed
when the miller's step was heard, and Carry knew that she was in the
presence of her father. She had been sitting, but now she rose, and
went to him and knelt at his feet.

"Father," she said, "if I may bide with you,--if I may bid