Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/42

 rain ceased, and the sun shone out over the sodden grass and the ruined garden, all strewed with broken branches, fallen fruit, and dead nestlings flung from the nests, and over which the mother rooks were piteously lamenting. The great fear of God so lately suffered, had taken away for a time all fear of man; and though the grandmother was present, I did not feel afraid when I asked Lucy's father if he would hear something that I wanted to tell him.

Some few things in our childhood make such a deep impression on the mind that they are never forgotten. I still remember how I told my story to Lucy's father, and almost the very words in which I told him.

I remember his benign face, which, to my great surprise, never once became in the least displeased all through the broken narrative. I remember the grandmother's manner, which, stranger still, never reproached me as it did at other times. I remember the touch of her aged hand, as once or twice she passed it softly over my hair; and, more than all, I remember the quiet kindness of Lucy's father, and how gently he said, when I had finished, and he had reflected for a few moments on my tale, 'Well, well, let him that is without sin among us first cast a stone at thee.'

From that day forward the grandmother was particularly kind to me.

Rh