“What can I do, Miss Marlay?” Albert did not ask her what she could do.  A self-reliant man at his time of life always asks first what he himself can do.

“I can not think of anything that anybody can do, with any hope of success.”  Isa’s good sense penetrated entirely through the subject, she saw all the difficulties, she had not imagination or sentiment enough to delude her practical faculty with false lights.

“Can not you do something?” asked Charlton, almost begging.

“I have tried everything.  I have spoken to your mother.  I have spoken to Uncle Plausaby.  I have begged Katy to listen to me, but Katy would only feel sorry for him if she believed he was bad.  She can love, but she can’t think, and if she knew him to be the worst man in the Territory she would marry him to reform him.  I did hope that you would have some influence over her.”

“But Katy is such a child.  She won’t listen if I talk to her.  Any opposition would only hurry the matter.  I wish it were right to blow out his brains, if he has any, and I suppose the monkey has.”

“It is a great deal better, Mr. Charlton, to trust in Providence where we can’t do anything without doing wrong.”

“Well, Miss Marlay, I didn’t look for cant from you.  I don’t believe that God cares.  Everything goes on by the almanac and natural law.  The sun sets when the time comes, no matter who is belated.  Girls that are sweet and loving and trusting, like Katy, have always been and will always be victims of rakish fools like Smith Westcott.  I wish I were an Indian, and then I could be my own Providence.  I would cut short his career, and make what David said about wicked men being cut off come true in this case, in the same way as I suppose David did in the case of the wicked of his day, by cutting them off himself.”

Isabel was thoroughly shocked with this speech.  What good religious girl would not have been?  She told Mr. Charlton with much plainness of speech that she thought common modesty might keep him from making such criticisms on God.  She for her part doubted whether all the facts of the case were known to him.  She intimated that there were many things in God’s administration not set down in almanacs, and she thought that, whatever God might be, a young man should not be in too great a hurry about arraigning Him for neglect of duty.  I fear it would not contribute much to the settlement of the very ancient controversy if I should record all the arguments, which were not fresh or profound.  It is enough that Albert replied sturdily, and that he went away presently with his vanity piqued by her censures.  Not that he could not answer her reasoning, if it were worthy to be called reasoning.  But he had lost ground in the estimation of a person whose good sense he could not help respecting, and the consciousness of this wounded his vanity.  And whilst all she said was courteous, it was vehement as any defense of the faith is likely