"Hush! When he is mentioned, bitter wrath rises in my bosom; I cannot crush it out—I cannot pray it out. God help me! Oh, my God, help me to hear this one name with charity."
"Benjamin—my husband!" cried the old woman, regarding the strong anguish in his face with affright, as his uplifted hands shook in their tight grip on each other, and his whole frame began to tremble.
He did not heed her pathetic cry, but sat down again by the hearth, and with a thin hand pressed hard upon each knee, bent forward, gazing into the smouldering fire, gloomy and silent. The old woman stole one hand over his and pressed it gently. It returned no answering token of her sympathy, but still rigidly held its grasp on his knee.
Again she touched his hand, and the loved name, that had been so sweet to her in youth, filled his ear with pathetic tenderness.
"Benjamin!"
He lifted his head, looked earnestly in her face, and then sunk slowly to his knees. With his locked hands pressed down upon the hearth, and his head bent low like one preparing to cast off a heavy weight, he broke forth in a prayer of such stern, passionate entreaty, that the very storm seemed to pause and listen to the outbreak of a soul more impetuous than itself. Never in God's holiest temple has the altar been sanctified by a prayer, more full of majestic eloquence, than that which rose from the hearth of the miserable cellar that night. The old man truly wrestled with the angels, and called for help against his own rebellious nature, till his forehead was beaded with drops of anguish, and every word seemed to burn and quiver like fire upon his meagre lips.
She, in her weaker and more timid nature, fell down by his side, pouring faint ejaculations and low moans into the current of his eloquence. But while he prayed for strength to endure, for divine light by which he could tread on beneath the burden of life, she now and then broke forth into a moaning cry, which was,
"Bread! bread! oh God, give us this day our daily bread!"
All at once, in the midst of his pleading, the old man's voice broke; a glorious smile spread over his features, and dropping his forehead between both hands, he murmured in the fulness of a heart suddenly deluged with love,