endure his anger? O David, my heart will break! My heart will
break!"

"Nanna, listen to this: when Elga Wick's child died, the minister
said there was a benign interpretation of the doctrines which taught
us that _none but elect infants died_. It would be unjust, Nanna,
unless the child was elect, not to give it the offer of salvation."

"What good would eighty years of 'offers' do, if there was no
election to eternal life?"

"Nanna, your father was a child of God, and you have loved him from
your youth upward."

"Can that help Vala?"

"Even so. He keeps his mercy for children's children, to the third
and fourth generation of them that fear him. Vala was in the direct
succession of faith."

"You know what her father and his folk have been?"

"Yes, I know."

"Oh, why did my father let me marry the man? He should rather have
tied me hands and feet, and cast me into the depths of the sea. He
should have said to me, 'Nanna, you may have a bairn, and it may be a
child of sin, and thus foreordained to hell-fire.' Do you think then
I would have wed Nicol Sinclair?"

"Ay, I think you would."

"Do you believe that I was born for that end?"

"I think you had set your heart on Nicol at all risks."

"At that time Nicol was in good favor with all folk."

"You have told me that your father liked him not, and that he said
many things to you against a marriage with him; so, then, if your
heart had not been fully set on its own way, his 'no' would have
been sufficient. If we heed not fathers and mothers and teachers, we
should not heed, Nanna, no, not if one came from the dead to warn us."

"That is an awful truth, David."

"And one must speak truth to heal a wounded soul. If there be a
canker in the body, you know well the doctor must not spare the
sharp knife. But I would not put away hope for Vala--no, indeed!"

"Why, David? Oh, why?"

"Has she not kindred in His presence? Will He not remember His
promise to them? Will they forget to remind Him of it? I think not so
hardly of the dead."

"David, I will tell you the last awful truth. I never could get
the poor little one baptized,--things ay went so against it,--and
she died without being signed and sealed to His mercy; that is the
dreadful part of her death. I was ashamed--I was afraid to tell
you before. O David, if you had stayed by Vala instead of going to
that man, you might perhaps have won her this saving grace; but
it was not to be."

David almost f