And a terrible utterance it
was! Looking about, unconsciously seeking some relief from the
accumulation of horrors with which the preacher was threatening the goats
of his congregation, Herbert spied, in the very front of one of the side
galleries, his little pupil, white with terror, and staring with round
unwinking eyes full in the face of the prophet of fear. Never after could
he read the parable without seeing the blanched face of the child, and
feeling a renewal of that evening's sadness over the fate of the poor
goats which afterwards grew into the question--'Doth God care for oxen,
and not for goats?' He never saw the child again; for they left the next
day, and she did not come to bid them good-by.
"As he went home from the chapel, her face of terror haunted him.
"That night he fell asleep, as usual, with the sound of the waves in his
soul. And as he slept he dreamed.--He stood, as he thought, upon the
cliff, within which lay the remnants of the old castle. The sun was slowly
sinking down the western sky, and a great glory lay upon the sea.
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