o war Adam, but they'n ne'er comed again this
'ear. Happen THEY'RE dead too."

"There," said Dinah, "now the kitchen looks tidy, and now, dear
Mother--for I'm your daughter to-night, you know--I should like you to
wash your face and have a clean cap on. Do you remember what David did,
when God took away his child from him? While the child was yet alive
he fasted and prayed to God to spare it, and he would neither eat nor
drink, but lay on the ground all night, beseeching God for the child.
But when he knew it was dead, he rose up from the ground and washed and
anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and ate and drank; and when
they asked him how it was that he seemed to have left off grieving now
the child was dead, he said, 'While the child was yet alive, I fasted
and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me,
that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?
Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return
to me.'"

"Eh, that's a true word," said Lisbeth. "Yea, my old man wonna come back
to me, but I shall go to him--the sooner the better. Well, ye may do as
ye like wi' me: there's a clean cap i' that drawer, an' I'll go i' the
back kitchen an' wash my face. An' Seth, thee may'st reach down Adam's
new Bible wi' th' picters in, an' she shall read us a chapter. Eh, I
like them words--'I shall go to him, but he wonna come back to me.'"

Dinah and Seth were both inwardly offering thanks for the greater
quietness of spirit that had come over Lisbeth. This was what Dinah had
been trying to bring about, through all her still sympathy and absence
from exhortation. From her girlhood upwards she had had experience among
the sick and the mourning, among minds hardened and shrivelled through
poverty and ignorance, and had gained the subtlest perception of the
mode in which they could best be touched and softened into willingness
to receive words of spiritual consolation or warning. As Dinah expressed
it, "she was never left to herself; but it was always given her when to
keep silence and when to speak." And do we not all agree to call rapid
thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest
analysis of the mental process, we must still say, as Dinah did, that
our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.

And so there was earnest prayer--there was faith, love, and hope pouring
forth that evening in the little kitchen. And