varying fortunes of the lovers in the books she read aloud during
the winter evenings; her heart understood that love, which brings
the highest joy, may also cause the deepest sorrow. But apart from
the sorrows of ill-starred love, she caught glimpses of something
else--a terrible something which she did not understand. Dark forms
would now and then appear to her, gliding through the paradise of
love, disgraced and abject. The sacred name of love was linked with
the direst shame and the deepest misery. Among people whom she
knew, things happened from time to time which she dared not think
about; and when, in stern but guarded words, her father chanced to
speak of moral corruption, she would shrink, for hours afterwards,
from meeting his eye.

He remarked this and was glad. In such sensitive purity had she
grown up, so completely had he succeeded in holding aloof from her
whatever could disturb her childlike innocence, that her soul was
like a shining pearl to which no mire could cling.

He prayed that he might ever keep her thus!

So long as he himself was there to keep watch, no harm should
approach her. And if he was called away, he had at least provided
her with armor of proof for life, which would stand her in good
stead on the day of battle. And a day of battle no doubt would
come. He gazed at her with a look which she did not understand, and
said with his strong faith, "Well, well, everything is in the hand
of Providence!"

"Haven't you time to go for a walk with me to-day, father?" asked
Rebecca, when they had finished dinner.