assistance as I have power to offer; do this for my sake, if not for
your own, that when these evils arise, which you prophesy perhaps too
truly, I may not have to reflect, that the hours of my happier time have
been passed altogether in vain."

The old man answered with a broken voice, and almost without addressing
himself to the young lady,--

"Yes, 'tis thus thou shouldst think--'tis thus thou shouldst speak,
if ever human speech and thought kept touch with each other! They do
not--they do not--Alas! they cannot. And yet--wait here an instant--stir
not till my return." He went to his little garden, and returned with a
half-blown rose. "Thou hast made me shed a tear, the first which has
wet my eyelids for many a year; for that good deed receive this token
of gratitude. It is but a common rose; preserve it, however, and do not
part with it. Come to me in your hour of adversity. Show me that rose,
or but one leaf of it, were it withered as my heart is--if it should be
in my fiercest and wildest movements of rage against a hateful world,
still it will recall gentler thoughts to my bosom, and perhaps afford
happier prospects to thine. But no message," he exclaimed, rising
into his usual mood of misanthropy,--"no message--no go-between! Come
thyself; and the heart and the doors that are shut against every other
earthly being, shall open to thee and to thy sorrows. And now pass on."

He let go the bridle-rein, and the young lady rode on, after expressing
her thanks to this singular being, as well as her surprise at the
extraordinary nature of his address would permit, often turning back to
look at the Dwarf, who still remained at the door of his habitation,
and watched her progress over the moor towards her father's castle of
Ellieslaw, until the brow of the hill hid the party from his sight.