behind came the shapes that
crawled or moved furtively, ever about to spring in front and turn upon
him. Small wonder, then, that his shoulders bent beneath unseen burdens,
that his air was of one who suffered for all the world, and that they
called him "the little man of sorrows."

With this knowledge he learned to permit himself only one great love, a
love for the child Prudence. He was sure that no punishment could come
through that. It was his day-star and his life, the one pleasure that
brought no suffering with it. She was a child of fourteen now, a
half-wild, firm-fleshed, glowing creature of the out-of-doors, who had
lost with her baby softness all her resemblance to her mother. Her hair
and eyes had darkened as she grew, and she was to be a larger woman,
graver, deeper, more reserved; perhaps better calculated for the Kingdom
by reason of a more reflective mind. He adored her, and was awed by her
even when he taught her the truths of revealed religion. He closed his
eyes at night upon a never-ending prayer for her soul; and opened them
each day to a love of her that grew insidiously to enthrall him while he
was all unconscious of its power--even while he knew with an awful
certainty that he must have no treasure of his own which he could not
willingly relinquish at the first call. She, in turn, loved and
confided in her father, the shy, bent, shrunken little man with the
smile.

"He always smiles as if he'd hurt himself and didn't want to show it
before company," were the words in which she announced one of her early
discoveries about him. But she liked and ruled him, and came to him for
comfort when she was hurt or when Lorena scolded. For the third wife did
not hesitate to characterise the child as "ready-made sin," and to
declare that it took all her spare time, "and a lot that ain't spare,"
to neat up the house after her. "And her paw--though Lord knows who her
maw was--a-dressing her to beat the cars; while he ain't never made over
me since the blessed day I married him--not that _much_! But, thank
heavens, it can't last very long, with the Son of Man already started,
like you might say."

CHAPTER XXIX.

_The Wild Ram of the Mountains Offers to Become a Saviour on Mount Zion_

In the valley of which Amalon was the centre, they made ready for the
end of the world. It is true that in the north, as the appointed year
drew nigh, an opinion had begun to prevail that the Son of Man might
defer his