sent wonder-working vibrations through
the heavy mortal frame--as if "beauty born of murmuring sound" had
passed into the face of the listener.

Silas's face showed that sort of transfiguration, as he sat in his
arm-chair and looked at Eppie. She had drawn her own chair towards his
knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up
at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered
gold--the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used
to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling
her how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly
desolate till she was sent to him.

"At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across me now and then," he was
saying in a subdued tone, "as if you might be changed into the gold
again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemed to see
the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it, and find
it was come back. But that didn't last long. After a bit, I should
have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove you from me,
for I'd got to feel the need o' your looks and your voice and the touch
o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie, when you were
such a little un--you didn't know what your old father Silas felt for
you."

"But I know now, father," said Eppie. "If it hadn't been for you,
they'd have taken me to the workhouse, and there'd have been nobody to
love me."

"Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you hadn't been sent
to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. The money was
taken away from me in time; and you see it's been kept--kept till it
was wanted for you. It's wonderful--our life is wonderful."

Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the money. "It takes no
hold of me now," he said, ponderingly--"the money doesn't. I wonder if
it ever could again--I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. I might
come to think I was forsaken again, and lose the feeling that God was
good to me."

At that moment there was a knocking at the door; and Eppie was obliged
to rise without answering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the
tenderness of gathering tears in her eyes and a slight flush on her
cheeks, as she stepped to open the door. The flush deepened when she
saw Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made her little rustic curtsy, and
held the door wide for them to enter.

"We're disturbing you very late, my dear," sa