of his flock—­I do not mean by the pay of the state, God forbid! but by having some trade or profession, if no fortune.  Still, if I had had the money to pay that bill, I should now be where I am glad not to be—­up on my castletop, instead of down at the gate.  He has made me poor that He might send me humility, and that I find unspeakably precious.  Perhaps He will send me the money next.  But may it not be intended also to make us live more simply—­on vegetables perhaps?  Do you not remember how it fared with Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, when they refused the meat and the wine, and ate pulse instead?  At the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king’s meat.  Pulse, you know, means peas and beans, and every thing of that kind—­which is now proved to be almost as full of nourishment as meat itself, and to many constitutions more wholesome.  Let us have a dinner of beans.  You can buy haricot beans at the grocer’s—­can you not?  If Ducky does not thrive on them, or they don’t agree with you, my Dorothy, you will have only to drop them.  I am sure they will agree with me.  But let us try, and then the money I owe Mr. Jones, will not any longer hang like a millstone about my neck.”

“We will begin this very day,” said Dorothy, delighted to see her father restored to equanimity.  “I will go and see after a dinner of herbs.—­We shall have love with it anyhow, father!” she added, kissing him.

That day the minister, who in his earlier days had been allowed by his best friends to be a little particular about his food, and had been no mean connoisseur in wines, found more pleasure at his table, from lightness of heart, and the joy of a new independence, than he had had for many a day.  It added much also to his satisfaction with the experiment, that, instead of sleeping, as his custom was, after dinner, he was able to read without drowsiness even.  Perhaps Dorothy’s experience was not quite so satisfactory, for she looked weary when they sat down to tea.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PARLOR AGAIN.

Faber had never made any effort to believe in a divine order of things—­indeed he had never made strenuous effort to believe in any thing.  It had never at all occurred to him that it might be a duty to believe.  He was a kindly and not a repellent man, but when he doubted another, he doubted him; it never occurred to him that perhaps he ought to believe in that man.  There must be a lack of something, where a man’s sense of duty urges him mainly to denial.  His existence is a positive thing—­his main utterance ought to be positive.  I would not forget that the nature of a denial may be such as to involve a strong positive.