"Well, perhaps not; but still, if he isn't happy at home? am I then to have it upon my conscience that I stand in his way? Sometimes I feel as if I ought even to ask him to leave."
"How do you know he is longing now, more than ever?"
"Oh,—by many things. Since the middle of the winter, he hasn't worked out in the parish a single day; but he has been to the town three times, and has stayed a long while each time. He scarcely ever talks now while he is at work, but he often used to do. He'll sit for hours alone at the little up-stairs window, looking towards the ravine, and away over the mountains; he'll sit there all Sunday afternoon, and often when it's moonlight he sits there till late in the night."
"Does he never read to you?"
"Yes, of course, he reads and sings to me every Sunday; but he seems rather in a hurry, save now and then when he gives almost too much of the thing."
"Does he never talk over matters with you then?"
"Well, yes; but it's so seldom that I sit and weep alone between whiles. Then I dare say he notices it, for he begins talking, but it's only about trifles; never about anything serious."
The Clergyman walked up and down the room; then he stopped and asked, "But why, then, don't you talk to him about his matters?"
For a long while she gave no answer; she sighed several times, looked downwards and sideways, doubled up her handkerchief, and at last said, "I've come here to speak to you, father, about something that's a great burden on my mind."
"Speak freely; it will relieve you."