“Nay,” said he, “you will not be the sole creature to remain dumb while the Creator is revealing Himself in the reanimation of His world after the dark days of Winter, when the icy finger which touched everything seemed to be the finger of Death!”
His voice had not the inflection of a preacher's. She did not feel as if he were reading her a homily that needed no answer.
But what answer could she make? She was, indeed, so much a part of the things of Nature that, like them, she could only utter what was in her heart. And what was in her heart except a consciousness of her own unworthiness?
“Ah, sir,” she murmured, “only last night had I for the first time a sense of what I should be.”
His face lit up again when she spoke. His hands clasped, mechanically as it seemed.
“I knew it,” he said in a low voice, turning away his head. “I was assured of it. When my horse cast his shoe I felt that it was no mischance. I heard the voice of a little child calling to me through the night. No doubt crossed my mind. I thank Thee—I thank Thee abundantly, O my Master!”
Then he turned to Nelly, saying:
“Child, my child, we are going the same way. Will you give me permission to walk by your side for the sake of company?”
“Nay, sir, will not you be weary a-walking?” she said. “'Tis a good three mile to the Port, and the road is rough when we leave the valley.”
“Three miles are not much,” said he, dismounting. “The distance will seem as nothing when we begin to talk.”