'GOD'S PEACE* 315
reading the unsatisfying modem literature ; no, she seems to have been born with this feeling. When she was a little girl, I thought it would give her pleasure to send her to her mothers relatives in the capital. She behaved nicely enough, and stayed the visit out, but on her return she made me pro- mise her that I would never send her away again. Everybody has been kind to her, and done all in their power to amuse her, but all the time she had longed for Rough-Hill till she had grown pale from longing and loneliness.'
The old man stopped talking, and sat for a while in deep thought. Then he added, ' Well, I suppose the time will come when she will have to leave — when I am dead. Unless she married a man who would live with her here. But of course I cannot say that Rough-Hill is rich in young men, and as far as I know, Greta has never worried her head much about such things. She is different also in this from other young girls, though she has read enough about love and romance.'
I sat very late in the miller's room. When it grew dark, Greta lit the lamp and sat down at the piano. Through the open window one saw the outline of the resting mill against the background of the pale summer sky. Out into the stillness were carried the thin, tinghng notes of the piano with Greta's simple and touching song. Whilst in the sofa-corner the old miller drowsed, the soft lamplight falling on his gently smiling face.
