them to his Latin version.

He little thought, that every night, at the moment when he stirred to
leave the upper room, a pale-faced, red-eyed figure rose from its
seat on the top of the stair by the door, and sped with long-legged
noiselessness to resume its seat by the grandmother before he should
enter. Shargar saw that Robert was unhappy, and the nearest he could
come to the sharing of his unhappiness was to take his place outside
the door within which he had retreated. Little, too, did Shargar, on
his part, think that Robert, without knowing it, was pleading for him
inside--pleading for him and for all his race in the weeping that would
not be comforted.

Robert had not the vaguest fancy that God was with him--the spirit of
the Father groaning with the spirit of the boy in intercession that
could not be uttered. If God had come to him then and comforted him with
the assurance of individual favour--but the very supposition is a taking
of his name in vain--had Robert found comfort in the fancied assurance
that God was his friend in especial, that some private favour was
granted to his prayers, that, indeed, would have been to be left to
his own inventions, to bring forth not fruits meet for repentance, but
fruits for which repentance alone is meet. But God was with him, and was
indeed victorious in the boy when he rose from his knees, for the
last time, as he thought, saying, 'I cannot yield--I will pray no
more.'--With a burst of bitter tears he sat down on the bedside till the
loudest of the storm was over, then dried his dull eyes, in which
the old outlook had withered away, and trod unknowingly in the silent
footsteps of Shargar, who was ever one corner in advance of him, down
to the dreary lessons and unheeded prayers; but, thank God, not to the
sleepless night, for some griefs bring sleep the sooner.

My reader must not mistake my use of the words especial and private, or
suppose that I do not believe in an individual relation between every
man and God, yes, a peculiar relation, differing from the relation
between every other man and God! But this very individuality and
peculiarity can only be founded on the broadest truths of the Godhood
and the manhood.

Mrs. Falconer, ere she went to sleep, gave thanks that the boys had been
at their prayers together. And so, in a very deep sense, they had.

And well they might have been; for Shargar was nearly as desolate as
Robert, and would certainly, had his mother