I'm a poor, helpless, deaf old man; and God never let me hear my child's voice.

He used to tell me it was sweet and pleasant to hear; and your laugh made every one merry who heard it.

But I could see you laugh, and now I never see it." She could not laugh now, and her smile was sadder than tears; so she bent down her head and laid it against his knee where he could not see her face.

By and by he touched her, and she lifted up her tear-dimmed eyes to his fingers.
"Promise me," he said, "not to sell this old place.

It has belonged to the Marlowes from generation to generation.