But she said nothing, and, hoping a good cup of tea would restore him, led the way through the dark shop to the door communicating with the house.

Often as she had passed through it thus, the picture of it as she saw it that night was the only one almost that returned to her afterward: a few vague streaks of light, from the cracks of the shutters, fed the rich, warm gloom of the place; one of them fell upon a piece of orange-colored cotton stuff, which blazed in the dark.
Arrived at their little sitting-room at the top of the stair, she hastened to shake up the pillows and make the sofa comfortable for him.
He lay down, and she covered him with a rug; then ran to her room for a book, and read to him while Beenie was getting the tea.

She chose a poem with which Mr.Wardour had made her acquainted almost the last tune she was at Thornwick--that was several weeks ago now, for plainly Letty was not so glad to see her as she used to be--it was Milton's little ode "On Time," written for inscription on a clock--one of the grandest of small poems.

Her father knew next to nothing of literature; having pondered his New Testament, however, for thirty years, he was capable of understanding Milton's best--to the childlike mind the best is always simplest and easiest-not unfrequently the _only_ kind it can lay hold of.

When she ended, he made her read it again, and then again; not until she had read it six times did he seem content.