She stopped; for she felt her own insufficiency to administer religious consolation.
"And who told you I was so great a sinner?" said the old woman, all her fierceness returning immediately.
Edith had felt herself all the comfort of opening her heart in prayer to God; but she was abashed by the old woman: she said only timidly and humbly, "Why will you not confide in my father? Tell him your wants and your misery, and he will pray for you, and help you."
"Tell him! and what does he know of the heart-broken? Can he lift the leaden covering from the conscience? Can he give me back the innocence and peace of my cottage home in the green lanes of England, or the blessing of my poor old father?" And, while an expression of the deepest sadness passed over her face,—"Can he bring back my children, my beautiful boys, or bid the sea give up its dead? No, no; let him preach and pray, and let these poor ignorant people hear him; and let me,—ah, let me lie down in the green earth."
Edith was shocked; and the tears she tried in vain to suppress forced themselves down her cheeks.
"Poor child!" said the old woman; "you can weep for others, but yours is the fate of all the daughters of Eve: you will soon weep for yourself. With all your proud beauty and your feeling heart, you cannot keep your idols: they will crumble away, and you will come at last to what I am."
Edith tried to direct her attention to something else. She looked around the cottage, which had not the appearance of the most abject poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat, and in one corner stood a comfortable-looking bed. A peat fire slumbered on the hearth, and many dried and smoked fish were hanging from the beams.
She said, very mildly, "I came, Nanny, to see if you did not want something to make you comfortable for the winter. My father sent me, and you must tell me all you want."
"I want nothing," said the old woman; "at least for myself. All your blankets cannot keep the cold from the heart."
At this moment, a little girl about five years old came running into the cottage, with a basket of blackberries she had been picking on the cliffs above the house. Edith was well known to her, as she was to all the children of the parish. The little girl went up to her and presented the blackberries, and then ran to her grandmother with the air of a favored child, as if she were sure of a welcome.