"Even so, young man."
"Samuel Parris, minister of the gospel in Salem?"
"Even to that honored post the Lord and his people have appointed me."
"One question more—only one—then forgive me if I am too bold. There is a young lady at our house—that is, at the house of Governor Phipps—her name is Parris also, and her father is minister of a congregation in Salem—tell me if this fair maiden is your child."
"My child!" cried the old man, lifting up his face to heaven with a look of exultant thanksgiving; "yes, Elizabeth is my child, the first-born of that beautiful one who is a leader among God's angels. Ask me if the heart which lies in my bosom—the brain that thinks—the blood that beats in these veins are mine, and I will answer, Yea. But not so closely do these things encompass me as does my love for Elizabeth, the babe that my young wife left in my embrace as a blessing and a comfort, before she was enrolled among the just made perfect."
The young man drew a quick breath; the enthusiasm and energy of the minister's speech, so uncalled for by the simple question he had put, startled him not a little. Besides this, other anxieties sprang up in his mind, and knowing the man with whom he had been cast so strangely by his true name, he was struck dumb with the rush of emotions which this knowledge aroused.
"Her father," he said inly; "her father—and is this our first meeting?"
"My child, my child!" cried the old man, forgetting his companion, while his eager eyes were turned towards the town. "Have I not fasted, watched, prayed, nay, sent her forth from beneath my roof that this great love may not be as a snare, and stand between me and my God—between me and the angel that has gone before! Now, when I have been two whole days within sight of the roof that covers her, holding down my heart, and fasting with a soul-fast—the very mention of her name, even by a stranger, sends the breath in quick gushes to my lips, and I tremble like a little child."
The old man stood still upon the shore, and the youth paused with him, gazing up into his face with a look of strange sympathy.
"I am grieved, I am very sorry!" he said, scarcely knowing that he had spoken at all.