again, and tried to make me follow it.

"What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as I am!
Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you."

"My child! my child!" were his only words; and he kept on saying, "My
child! my child!" as if he liked the sound of it.

At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or afterward.
It may have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it
may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak.
All I know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the
night, to cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious,
harassed breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and
for himself; but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away,
as if through want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years
had deadened and benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt
the conflict and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and
as if from out a dream,

"Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your life;
save your life, Erema."

There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took
his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered
into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he
could not speak, I tried to say what he would say to me.

At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in my
weak arms quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little things
came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how quietly he
had prepared for this, and provided for me only. Cold despair and
self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I lay at my father's
side, and slept with his dead hand in mine. There in the desert of
desolation pious awe embraced me, and small phantasms of individual fear
could not come nigh me.

By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from me.
How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now. Such
times are not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie forlorn,
with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died out, and all
the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!

Young and weak, a