LOUISA. I can think of no pleasing name for it just now! You must not
be alarmed, father, if the name I give it has a terrible sound. That
place,----Oh! why has no lover invented a name for it! He would have
chosen the softest, the sweetest--that place, my dear father--but you
must not interrupt me--that place is--the grave!

MILLER (staggering to a seat). Oh, God!

LOUISA (hastens to him, and supports him). Nay, father, be not alarmed!
These are but terrors which hover round an empty word! Take away the
name and the grave will seem to be a bridal-bed over which Aurora spreads
her golden canopy and spring strews her fairest flowers. None but a
groaning sinner pictures death as a skeleton; to others he is a gentle,
smiling boy, blooming as the god of love, but not so false--a silent,
ministering spirit who guides the exhausted pilgrim through the desert of
eternity, unlocks for him the fairy palace of everlasting joy, invites
him in with friendly smiles, and vanishes forever!

MILLER. What meanest thou, my child? Surely, thou wilt not lay guilty
hands on thine own life?

LOUISA. Speak not thus, father! To quit a community from which I am
already rejected, to fly voluntarily to a place from which I cannot much
longer be absent, is that a sin?

MILLER. Suicide is the most horrible of sins, my child. 'Tis the only
one that can never he repented, since death arrives at the moment the
crime is committed.

LOUISA (stands motionless with horror). That is dreadful! But my death
will not be so sudden, father. I will spring into the river, and while
the waters are closing over me, cry to the Almighty for mercy and
forgiveness!

MILLER. That is to say, you will repent the theft as soon as the
treasure is secure! Daughter! Daughter! beware how you mock your God
when you most need his help! Oh! you have gone far, far astray! You have
forgotten the worship of your Creator, and he has withdrawn his
protecting hand from you!

LOUISA. Is it, then, a crime to love, father?

MILLER. So long as thou lovest God thou wilt never love man to idolatry.
Thou hast bowed me down low, my only one! low! very low! perhaps to the
grave! Yet will I not increase the sadness of thy heart. Daughter! I
gave vent to my feelings as I entered. I thought myself alone! Thou
hast overheard me! and why should I longer conceal the truth. Thou wert
my idol! Hear me, Louisa, if there is yet room in thy heart for a
father's feelings. Thou wert my all! Of t