The father rose from his seat, and went to the door to look out into the night.--The stars were in thousands--and the full moon was risen.--It was almost light as day, and the snow, that seemed incrusted with diamonds, was so hardened by the frost, that his daughter's homeward feet would leave no mark on its surface. He had been toiling all day among the distant Castle-woods, and, stiff and wearied as he now was, he was almost tempted to go to meet his child, but his wife's kind voice dissuaded him, and returning to the fire-side, they began to talk of her whose image had been so long passing before them in their silence.
"She is growing up to be a bony lassie," said the mother, "her long and weary attendance on me during my fever last spring kept her down awhile--but now she is sprouting fast and fair as a lily, and may the blessing of God be as dew and as sunshine to our sweet flower all the days she bloometh upon this earth." "Aye Agnes," replied the father, "we are not very old yet--though we are getting older--and a few years will bring her to women's estate, and what thing on this earth, think ye, human or brute, would ever think of injuring her? Why I was speaking about her yesterday to the minister as he was riding by, and he told me that none answered at the Examination in the Kirk so well as Hannah.--Poor thing--I well think she has all the Bible by heart--indeed, she has read but little else--only some stories, too true ones, of the blessed martyrs, and some o' the auld sangs o' Scotland, in which there is nothing but what is good, and which, to be sure, she sings, God bless her, sweeter than any laverock." "Aye--were we both to die this very night, she would be happy--not that she would forget us, all the days of her life. But have you not seen, husband, that God always makes the orphan happy?--None so little lonesome as they! They come to make friends o' all the bonny and sweet things in the world around them, and all the kind hearts in the world make friends o' them. They come to know that God is more especially the father o' them on earth whose parents he has taken up to heaven--and therefore it is that they for whom so many have fears, fear not at all for themselves, but go dancing and singing along like children whose parents are both alive! Would it not be so with our dear Hannah? So douce and thoughtful a child--but never sad nor miserable--ready it is true to shed tears for little, but as ready to dry them up and break out into smiles! I know not why it is, husband, but this night my heart warms toward her, beyond usual. The moon and stars are at this moment looking down upon her, and she looking up to them, as she is glinting homewards over the snow. I wish she were but here, and taking the comb out o' her bonny hair, and letting it all fall down in clusters before the fire, to melt away the cranreuch!"