contemplated. But he wanted to show her that he was
grateful, and the only mode that occurred to him was to offer Aaron a
bit more cake.

"Oh, no, thank you, Master Marner," said Dolly, holding down Aaron's
willing hands. "We must be going home now. And so I wish you
good-bye, Master Marner; and if you ever feel anyways bad in your
inside, as you can't fend for yourself, I'll come and clean up for you,
and get you a bit o' victual, and willing. But I beg and pray of you
to leave off weaving of a Sunday, for it's bad for soul and body--and
the money as comes i' that way 'ull be a bad bed to lie down on at the
last, if it doesn't fly away, nobody knows where, like the white frost.
And you'll excuse me being that free with you, Master Marner, for I
wish you well--I do. Make your bow, Aaron."

Silas said "Good-bye, and thank you kindly," as he opened the door for
Dolly, but he couldn't help feeling relieved when she was
gone--relieved that he might weave again and moan at his ease. Her
simple view of life and its comforts, by which she had tried to cheer
him, was only like a report of unknown objects, which his imagination
could not fashion. The fountains of human love and of faith in a
divine love had not yet been unlocked, and his soul was still the
shrunken rivulet, with only this difference, that its little groove of
sand was blocked up, and it wandered confusedly against dark
obstruction.

And so, notwithstanding the honest persuasions of Mr. Macey and Dolly
Winthrop, Silas spent his Christmas-day in loneliness, eating his meat
in sadness of heart, though the meat had come to him as a neighbourly
present. In the morning he looked out on the black frost that seemed
to press cruelly on every blade of grass, while the half-icy red pool
shivered under the bitter wind; but towards evening the snow began to
fall, and curtained from him even that dreary outlook, shutting him
close up with his narrow grief. And he sat in his robbed home through
the livelong evening, not caring to close his shutters or lock his
door, pressing his head between his hands and moaning, till the cold
grasped him and told him that his fire was grey.

Nobody in this world but himself knew that he was the same Silas Marner
who had once loved his fellow with tender love, and trusted in an
unseen goodness. Even to himself that past experience had become dim.

But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily, and the church was
fuller than a