"Insolent boy!" cried Walter, clenching his hand, his blood mounting to his temples, his eye flashing fire! Ned might have had reason to repent his idle jest, had not Viner, who had overheard the words that passed, laid his hand firmly upon the arm of Walter, and drawn him away within the gate.
"Would you be the slave to your passions?" he said in a low voice, "And show the world that a Christian can neither bear nor forbear."
"I could forgive neglect," muttered Walter, "could forgive wrongs; but this contempt, this scorn, this ridicule! I wonder," he exclaimed, almost indignantly, "that you, who value only wisdom and virtue, can endure this trifling, silly, conceited—"
"Yet generous-hearted boy," said Viner, pointing to a fine hare that lay upon the counter. "He has kind thought for others with all his faults, he know that nourishment was ordered for my Nelly."
Walter started, and felt angry with himself that the sight of food so much needed should give him an emotion of pain rather than of pleasure. But to Viner, who, even in the smaller events of life, recognised the hand of an overruling Providence, the timely gift from the kindness of an earthly friend seemed an answer sent to his earnest prayer:
"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD!"
[CHAPTER VI.]
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them
that trespass against us."
"NELLY, what are you thinking of—you look sad?" inquired Walter on the following morning, which happened to be Sunday.