Introductory material
Reading edition
THE MILL OF SILENCE.
Yesterday came a knock at the door—a faint, tentative knock as from childish knuckles—and I went to see who it was. A queer little figure stood outside in the twilight—a dainty compendium of skirt and cape and frothy white frills—and a small elfish face looked up into mine through shimmering of hair, like love in a mist.
“If you please,” she said, “Zyp’s dead and will you take care of poor Zyp’s child?”
Then at that moment the hard agony of my life broke its walls in a blessed convulsion of weeping, and I caught the little wanderer to my heart and carried her within doors.
“And so poor Zyp is dead?” said I.
“Yes,” answered the elfin; “and, please, will you give me back to her some day?”
“Before God’s throne,” I whispered, “I will deliver up my trust; and that in such wise that from His mercy some little of the light of love may, perhaps, shine upon me also.”
That night I put my signature to the last page of the narrative here unfolded.