After supper they went to sleep on a nice deer-skin, spread upon the floor, but some how that night the old man could not sleep.
He got up two or three times to look at the children, with the tears standing in his eyes.
He was living over the past. “Bless her little heart,” he said, smoothing with his rough hand the soft wavy hair of the little girl.
In the morning the children woke much refreshed. At first they did not know where they were, but they saw the face of the old man turned kindly toward them, and remembered all.
At breakfast the brother told their story to the boy, and he interpreted it to the father.
“They shall stay with us,” said the old man, with great satisfaction, for he had dreaded parting with the child that had so won his love.
After breakfast they went into the mill, and the handsome boy told the orphans his story, in return.
“Some years ago,” he said, “my father and mother came to this country, bringing my little sister and myself.
“Mother and sister died very soon after we arrived, and father and I have lived here alone for many years.
“You can’t tell how lonely it was at first,” he continued, “and how I used to cry myself to sleep, and poor father was very sad. I am so glad you are going to stay with us.”