"But it is not good for my little girl always to be quiet, and it grieves father."
"Does it?" She roused herself, sat upright, and began to move her limbs, but wearily.
"That is right, my darling. Now let me see how well you can walk."
Muriel slipped to her feet and tried to cross the room, catching at table and chairs—now, alas! not only for guidance but actual support. At last she began to stagger, and said, half crying:
"I can't walk, I am so tired. Oh, do take me in your arms, dear father."
Her father took her, looked long in her sightless face, then buried his against her shoulder, saying nothing. But I think in that moment he too saw, glittering and bare, the long-veiled Hand which, for this year past, I had seen stretched out of the immutable heavens, claiming that which was its own. Ever after there was discernible in John's countenance a something which all the cares of his anxious yet happy life had never written there—an ineffaceable record, burnt in with fire.
He held her in his arms all day. He invented all sorts of tales and little amusements for her; and when she was tired of these he let her lie in his bosom and sleep. After her bed-time he asked me to go out with him on the Flat.
It was a misty night. The very cows and asses stood up large and spectral as shadows. There was not a single star to be seen.
We took our walk along the terrace and came back again, without exchanging a single word. Then John said hastily:
"I am glad her mother was so busy to-day—too busy to notice."