d
exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--deep joys to most
of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live
solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well--sunk into
their breasts and made them very glad. The child had repeated her
artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had
ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her
lips again. The old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the
words--but he said amen, and that they were very good.

There had been an old copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, with strange
plates, upon a shelf at home, over which she had often pored whole
evenings, wondering whether it was true in every word, and where those
distant countries with the curious names might be. As she looked back
upon the place they had left, one part of it came strongly on her mind.

'Dear grandfather,' she said, 'only that this place is prettier and a
great deal better than the real one, if that in the book is like it, I
feel as if we were both Christian, and laid down on this grass all the
cares and troubles we brought with us; never to take them up again.'

'No--never to return--never to return'--replied the old man, waving his
hand towards the city. 'Thou and I are free of it now, Nell. They
shall never lure us back.'

'Are you tired?' said the child, 'are you sure you don't feel ill from
this long walk?'

'I shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away,' was his
reply. 'Let us be stirring, Nell. We must be further away--a long,
long way further. We are too near to stop, and be at rest. Come!'

There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved
her hands and face, and cooled her feet before setting forth to walk
again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and
making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her
hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

'I can do nothing for myself, my darling,' said the grandfather; 'I
don't know how it is, I could once, but the time's gone. Don't leave
me, Nell; say that thou'lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while,
indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!'

He laid his head upon her shoulder and moaned piteously. The time had
been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have
restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed
him with gentle and t