“I love Him!” She said no more; but her countenance spoke the rest; and her companion saw it He stood as silently gazing as a man who in the desert comes face to face with an angel.
Olive recollecting herself blushed deeply. “I ought to apologise for speaking so freely of these things to a stranger and a clergyman—in this place too.”
“Can there be a fitter place, or one that so sanctifies, and at the same time justifies this conversation?” was the answer, as the speaker glanced round the quiet domain of the dead. Then Olive remembered where they stood—that she was talking to the husband over his lost wife's tomb. The thought touched her with sympathy for this man, whose words, though so earnest, were yet so piercing. He seemed as though it were his habit to tear away every flimsy veil, in order to behold the shining image of Truth.
They were silent for a moment, and then he resumed, with a smile,—the first that had yet lightened his face, and which now cast on it an inexpressible sweetness—
“Let me thank you for talking so kindly to my little daughter. I trust I have sufficiently explained why I interrupted your lessons.”
“Still, it seems strange,” said Olive. And strong interest conquering her diffidence, she asked how he, a clergyman, had possibly contrived to keep the child in such utter ignorance?
“She has not lived much with me,” he answered; “my little Ailie has been brought up in complete solitude. It was best for a child, whose birth was soon followed by her mother's death.”
Olive trembled lest she had opened a wound; but his words and manner had the grave composure of one who speaks of any ordinary event. Whatever grief he had felt, it evidently was healed. An awkward pause, during which Miss Rothesay tried to think in what way she could best end the conversation. It was broken at last by little Ailie, who crept timidly across the churchyard to her father.
“Please, papa, grandmamma wants to see you before she goes out. She is going to John Dent's, and to Farnwood, and”——
“Hush, little chatterbox! this lady cannot be interested in our family revelations. Bid her 'good-afternoon' and come!”