Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/180

170 "And me, too! I can't be the only orphan in the house," exclaimed I.

The sweet old face flushed, and she turned smilingly to her husband, saying:— "A quiver full—is it not, husband?"

"He setteth the solitary in families," replied Parson Allen, solemnly and tenderly. "God bless you all, my children." And he drew Ally to his arms very fondly.

It was thought best that Ally should know nothing of the circumstances of her father's death, nor of his funeral. It was enough for her trusting little soul to be told that he had died. There was no bond of love between them. He had represented to her only terror and suffering, since her babyhood. The strongest proof of this was the fact that she never mentioned his name; of her mother she had no recollection; her life had been almost incredibly sad; it was hard to conceive how a child could have lived to be eleven years old, and have had so few associations stamped on her mind, either with places or people. Her memories seemed to be chiefly of hunger and loneliness, and terror of her father of room after room in which she had been left alone, day after clay, and sometimes night after night, for weeks and months; and of long journeys which were one shade less dreadful than the solitary confinement had been, because, as she said quietly: "Everybody spoke to me, and I liked that."