"You are too young to die yet: you have many happy days in store, I hope. Come, come; eat something, or you will die."
"But eating will make me live, and I want to die, and go to my father and mother."
"But that would be to kill yourself, and then you would never see either God or your parents, you know. Come, eat a morsel, and take a mouthful of wine."
"But when you go, there is no one to give me any more, so I shall only be longer in dying."
"Self-destruction, you ought to know, if you have been properly brought up, is the only sin for which there can be no pardon, for that is the only sin we can not repent."
Marie looked timidly up at the manly, sensible, kind face which bent over her, and accepted the food he offered. He was dressed as a workman, and had on his shoulders a hod of glass: in fact, he was an itinerant glazier. His look was compassionate, but his voice, although soft, was authoritative. Refreshed by what she had taken, Marie sat up, and very soon was able to walk. She told her little history, one word of which he never doubted.
"But what do you mean to do?" asked the young man.
"To stay with you always, for you are kind and good, and no one else is so to me."
"But that can not be: it would not be right, you know."
"And why would it not be right? Oh, do let me! don't send me away! I will be so good!" answered she, her entire ignorance and innocence preventing her feeling what any girl, brought up among her fellow-creatures, however carefully, would at once have done.