“Pardon me, Miss Redbud—­that is a pretty maxim—­nothing more, however.”

And Mr. Rushton, cold and impassable, came in with the jovial Squire.

“So busy talking, young people, that you could not even look out the window when I approach with visitors, eh?” cried the Squire, chuckling Miss Redbud under the chin, and driving the breath out of Verty’s body by a friendly slap upon that gentleman’s back.  “Well, here we are, and there’s Lavinia—­bless her heart—­with an expression which indicates protestation at the loudness of my voice, ha! ha!”

And the Squire laughed in a way which shook the windows.

Miss Lavinia smiled in a solemn manner, and busied herself about tea.

Redbud turned to Mr. Rushton, who had seated himself with an expression of grim reserve, and, smiling, said: 

“I did not hear you—­exactly what you said—­as you came in, you know, Mr. Rushton—­”

“I said that your maxim, ‘All is for the best,’ is a pretty maxim, and no more,” replied the lawyer, regarding Verty with an air of rough indifference, as though he tad totally forgotten the scene of the morning.

“I’m sure you are wrong, sir,” Redbud said.

“Very likely—­to be taught by a child!” grumbled the lawyer.

Redbud caught the words.

“I know I ought not to dispute with you, sir,” she said; “but what I said is in the Bible, and you know that cannot contain what is not true.”

“Hum!” said Mr. Rushton.  “That was an unhappy age—­and the philosophy of Voltaire and Rousseau had produced its effect even on the strongest minds.”

“God does all for the best, and He is a merciful and loving Being,” said Redbud.  “Even if we suffer here, in this world, every affliction, we know that there is a blessed recompense in the other world.”

“Humph!—­how?” said the skeptic.

“By faith?”

“What is faith?” he said, looking carelessly at the girl.

“I don’t know that I can define it better than belief and trust in God,” said Redbud.

These were the words which Verty had written on the paper.

The glance of the lawyer fell upon the young man’s face, and from it passed to the innocent countenance of Redbud.  She had evidently uttered the words without the least thought of the similarity.

“Humph,” said the lawyer, frowning, “that is very fine, Miss; but suppose we cannot see anything to give us a very lively—­faith, as you call it.”

“Oh, but you may, sir!”

“How?”

“Everywhere there are evidences of God’s goodness and mercy.  You cannot doubt that.”

A shadow passed over the rough face.

“I do doubt it,” was on his lips, but he could not, rude as he was, utter such a sentence in presence of the pure, childlike girl.

“Humph,” he said, with his habitual growl, “suppose a man is made utterly wretched in this world—­”