"Get thee into the house now. I have forgiven thee." So saying he passed on to his morning's work.
Carry, running into the house, at once roused her sister. "Fanny," she exclaimed, "he has forgiven me at last; he has said that he will forgive me."
But to the miller's mind, and to his sense of justice, the forgiveness thus spoken did not suffice. When he returned to breakfast, Mrs. Brattle had, of course, been told of the morning's work, and had rejoiced greatly. It was to her as though the greatest burden of her life had now been taken from her weary back. Her girl, to her loving motherly heart, now that he who had in all things been the lord of her life had vouchsafed his pardon to the poor sinner, would be as pure as when she had played about the mill in all her girlish innocence. The mother had known that her child was still under a cloud, but the cloud to her had consisted in the father's wrath rather than in the feeling of any public shame. To her a sin repented was a sin no more, and her love for her child made her sure of the sincerity of that repentance. But there could be no joy over the sinner in this world till the head of the house should again have taken her to his heart. When the miller came in to his breakfast the three women were standing together, not without some outward marks of contentment. Mrs. Brattle's cap was clean, and even Fanny, who was ever tidy and never smart, had managed in some way to add something bright to her appearance. Where is the woman who, when she has been pleased, will not show her pleasure by some sign in her outward garniture? But still there was anxiety. "Will he call me Carry?" the girl had asked. He had not done so when he pronounced her pardon at the mill door. Though they were standing together they had not decided on any line of action. The pardon had been spoken and they were sure that it would not be revoked; but how it would operate at first none of them had even guessed.
The miller, when he had entered the room and come among them, stood with his two hands resting on the round table, and thus he addressed them: "It was a bad time with us when the girl, whom we had all loved a'most too well, forgot herself and us, and brought us to shame,—we who had never known shame afore,—and became a thing so vile as I won't name it. It was well nigh the death o' me, I know."
"Oh, father!" exclaimed Fanny.
"Hold your peace, Fanny, and let me say my say out. It was very bad then; and when she come back to us, and was took in, so that she might have her bit to eat under an honest roof, it was bad still;—for she was a shame to us as had never been shamed afore. For myself I felt so, that though she was allays near me, my heart was away from her, and she was not one with me, not as her sister is one, and her mother, who never know'd a thought in her heart as wasn't fit for a woman to have there." By this time Carry was sobbing on her mother's bosom, and it would be difficult to say whose affliction was the sharpest. "But them as falls may right themselves, unless they be chance killed as they falls. If my child be sorry for her sin—"
"Oh, father, I am sorry."
"I will bring myself to forgive her. That it won't stick here," and the miller struck his heart violently with his open palm, "I won't be such a liar as to say. For there ain't no good in a lie. But there shall be never a word about it more out o' my mouth,—and she may come to me again as my child."
There was a solemnity about the old man's speech which struck them all with so much awe that none of them for a while knew how to move or to speak. Fanny was the first to stir, and she came to him and put her arm through his and leaned her head upon his shoulder.
"Get me my breakfast, girl," he said to her. But before he had moved Carry had thrown herself weeping on his bosom. "That will do," he said. "That will do. Sit down and eat thy victuals." Then there was not another word said, and the breakfast passed off in silence.