"Oh! yes, sir, I have seen the clouds melt away into rainbows so often."
"Well, it is the sunshine that makes a thing of beauty, where was only a dull black cloud. In the human face, my child, goodness acts like sunshine on the clouds. Be very good, little one, and the best portion of mankind will always think you handsome."
Mary listened very earnestly, but with an irresolute and unconvinced expression. This doctrine of immaterial loveliness she could not readily adopt; and, strange enough, did not quite relish. Her admiration of Isabel's beauty was so intense, that words like these seemed to outrage it.
"Come, come," said the Judge, who had never had an opportunity of conversing much with the child, "you must not cry so bitterly at being parted."
"Sir," said the child, turning her large spiritual eyes upon the Judge, "her father and mother were very, very kind to me, when I had no home, no food—nothing—nothing on earth but the cold streets to live in; remember that!"
"It is important that I should be well informed about you, Mary. Who was your father?"
"My father," cried the child, starting upright, and her eyes flashed out brightly, scattering back their tears, "my father was as good a man as ever breathed; good, good, sir, as you are. He did everything for me, worked for me, taught me himself, nursed me in his own arms, my father—oh, my poor, poor father, he is a bright angel in heaven."
"But your mother—did she act kindly by you?"
"My mother, oh, sir, she is with him—she is surely with my father."
Enoch Sharp turned away his head.