ould they reach him? Nettie little thought that what he felt
most, what _did_ reach him, though he did not thoroughly understand it,
was the look of her own face; though she never but once dared turn it
toward him. There was a little colour in it more than usual; her eye was
deep in its earnestness; and the grave set of her little mouth was
broken up now and then in a way that Mr. Mathieson wanted to watch
better than the straight sides of her sun-bonnet would let him. Once he
thought he saw something more.

He walked home very soberly, and was a good deal on the silent order
during the rest of the day. He did not go to church in the afternoon.
But in the evening, as her mother was busy in and out getting supper
ready, and Mr. Lumber had not come in, Mr. Mathieson called Nettie to
his side.

"What was you crying for in church this forenoon?" he said, low.

"Crying!" said Nettie, surprised. "Was I crying?"

"If it wasn't tears I saw dropping from under your hands on to the
floor, it must have been some drops of rain that had got there, and I
don't see how they could very well. There warn't no rain outside. What
was it for, hey?"

There came a great flush all over Nettie's face, and she did not at once
speak.

"Hey?--what was it for?"--repeated Mr. Mathieson.

The flush passed away. Nettie spoke very low and with lips all of a
quiver. "I remember. I was thinking, father, how 'all things are
ready'--and I couldn't help wishing that you were ready too."

"Ready for what?" said Mr. Mathieson, somewhat roughly. "All things
ready for what?"

"Ready for you," said Nettie. "Jesus is ready to love you, and calls
you--and the angels are ready to rejoice for you--and I----"

"Go on! What of you?"

Nettie lifted her eyes to him. "I am ready to rejoice too, father." But
the time of rejoicing was not yet. Nettie burst into tears.

Mr. Mathieson was not angry, yet he flung away from her with a rude
"Pshaw!" and that was all the answer she got. But the truth was, that
there was something in Nettie's look, of tenderness, and purity, and
trembling hope, that her father's heart could not bear to meet; and what
is more, that he was never able to forget.

Nettie went about her evening business helping her mother, and keeping
back the tears which were very near again; and Mr. Mathieson began to
talk with Mr. Lumber, and everything was to all appearance just as it
had been hitherto. And so it went on after that.

CHAPTE