"Go, sister," answered the little girl; "you need not feel uneasy about me, for indeed I will not stir from this spot, in which you have put me, until you come back. But, Molly, don't stay too long, don't leave me too long alone, because I am so much afraid when you are not with me, and when I cannot hear your voice. I think the angels that mother used to tell us so often about must be just like you, Molly,—so kind and so good."
Touched by these simple words, Molly bent down, pressed her lips upon the brow white as marble in its famished pallor, and said softly,—
"God has taken away from us the mother who loved us so dearly, and made an angel of her, because she was so kind and good. When you are good, Kitty, she is glad; and in the blessed place in which she now lives, she feels her happiness redoubled. So you must always be very good, my little sister. How could it be possible that you would do anything which would make your mother and sister feel sad? Don't be afraid if I leave you for a little while. Only think of your dear mother, that she is always near you, that she takes care of you with the truest love, although even from the very day upon which you were born she was so weak and suffered so constantly that she could scarcely be numbered among the living; and I have often spent whole nights upon my knees, with the hot tears running down my cheeks, praying the Merciful One to take the poor sufferer we loved to himself, that she might rest with Him above. At last, Kitty, He took her to heaven!"
Then Molly again stirred the fire, seated her little sister upon an old coverlid, the ends of which she tenderly wrapped round the emaciated, half-naked limbs, and left the hovel. The long autumn night was already falling upon the earth, and covered the landscape with its dull, gray veil; the cheerful sky was thickly overcast with dusky clouds, which, constantly changing their fantastic forms, seemed hunting each other through the vaulted gloom. A rough north-wind met poor Molly as she emerged from the hovel, tore the heavy door out of her slight hand, and blew it with a loud crash against the wall. She shuddered with fright, but, almost immediately regaining her self-possession, she attentively examined the door, to ascertain if any of the boards had been broken in the sudden jar; and having soon convinced herself that nothing had been injured, with considerable effort she succeeded in rolling a heavy stone to the door, to prevent the possibility of the recurrence of a like accident. Then she stooped to look again at her little sister through one of the holes which served as windows to the hut. Kitty sat as motionless as she had promised to do, and Molly, apparently satisfied that she would continue to do so, hastened forward upon a narrow footpath, so little frequented that its slight traces were scarcely distinguishable in the increasing gloom. From time to time she stopped, sometimes to look around her, and listen anxiously for the desired footsteps, sometimes to get breath, for a strong and piercing north-wind blew directly in her face, and greatly increased the difficulty of her lonely search. After she had struggled on for a considerable distance, she thought she heard the longed-for sounds; and before she had ventured to give herself fully up to the hope that the so long expected one was indeed near, a tall form stood before her, whom with a loud cry of joy she immediately greeted as "Father!"
But there was no response given to her joyful welcome. In utter silence, the tall man grasped the slight girl round her slender waist. Almost carrying her forward, for her feet scarcely even touched the ground, he reached the entrance of his wretched dwelling. With a powerful kick, so that it rolled entirely over, he tossed away the heavy stone from the door, drew, or rather bore, his daughter into the inside of the now dimly lighted hut, rapidly flung the rope which was fastened to the door round a post which seemed planted in the floor for that purpose, and with a few strides stood directly in front of the fire. He then seized the coarse sack which he had carried upon his broad shoulders, and threw it upon the ground with such force that the child who was lying near his feet, and who had probably been asleep, started up with a loud cry of fright.
"Don't be frightened, Kitty," said Molly, soothingly, as she threw a handful of shavings into the now sinking fire; "don't be afraid now, for our dear father is with us; the potatoes are cooked enough, and you shall no longer be so very, very hungry."
"Is my father indeed here?" said the little girl, at once forgetting both hunger and cold. "Where are you, father? Just speak one word, that your poor little blind Kitty may know where to find you. O, you have been away so long to-day! and yet Molly told me it was not far to the village to which you were going, and that you had not much to do there."
But no sound escaped the lips of the one so warmly welcomed. Motionless and with folded arms he still stood before the fire, darkly gazing into its cheerful glow. His eldest daughter then softly approached him; by the blaze of a lighted shaving which she held in her hand, she saw the expressive face of her father, with its weather-beaten skin and labor-wrinkled brow, and with the deepest sorrow impressed upon every line of the manly and handsome countenance. The tears which were hanging upon his long eyelashes, the spasmodic quivering which wreathed its torture round his mouth, could not escape her searching glance, rendered keen through the power of love. Trembling before the recital of some new and dire misfortune, which she felt he was now about to make to her, she leaned her innocent head upon the breast of the beloved and true-hearted father, whose life had been so often and fatally darkened by misfortune. But almost roughly he pushed her away.
"Child!" he cried, with an expression of the deepest agony in his fine face, "why do you continue to love a wretch whom the whole world has forsaken? You, too, had better forsake him! Fly,—fly now,—instantly, or he will draw you into a far deeper misery,—a suffering for which there are no words, in comparison with which all you have already endured will seem to you a lot worthy of envy, a destiny full of blessings."