cottage across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can be conceived; it came as if the Past were speaking, as if the Dead had contributed each a whisper, as if the Desolation of Ages were breathed in that one lamenting sound.
The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining however his hand between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked steadfastly at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter might have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed, and his frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous agitation.
'Friend Tobias,' inquired the old man, compassionately, 'hast thou found no comfort in these many blessed passages of scripture?'
'Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct,' replied Pearson without lifting his eyes. 'Yea, and when I have harkened carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless, and intended for another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the book,' he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness. 'I have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret my sorrow the more.'
'Nay, feeble brother, be not as one who hath never known the light,' said the elder Quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. 'Art thou he that wouldst be content to give all, and endure all, for conscience' sake; desiring even peculiar trials, that thy faith might be purified,
