I found, as I had feared, that, although Mr. Stoddart seemed to listen with some interest to what I said, I could not bring him to the point of making any practical suggestion, or of responding to one made by me; and I left him with the conviction that he would do nothing to help me. Yet during the whole of our interview he had not opposed a single word I said. He was like clay too much softened with water to keep the form into which it has been modelled. He would take SOME kind of form easily, and lose it yet more easily. I did not show all my dissatisfaction, however, for that would only have estranged us; and it is not required, nay, it may be wrong, to show all you feel or think: what is required of us is, not to show what we do not feel or think; for that is to be false. I left the house in a gloomy mood. I know I ought to have looked up to God and said: “These things do not reach to Thee, my Father. Thou art ever the same; and I rise above my small as well as my great troubles by remembering Thy peace, and Thy unchangeable Godhood to me and all Thy creatures.” But I did not come to myself all at once. The thought of God had not come, though it was pretty sure to come before I got home. I was brooding over the littleness of all I could do; and feeling that sickness which sometimes will overtake a man in the midst of the work he likes best, when the unpleasant parts of it crowd upon him, and his own efforts, especially those made from the will without sustaining impulse, come back upon him with a feeling of unreality, decay, and bitterness, as if he had been unnatural and untrue, and putting himself in false relations by false efforts for good. I know this all came from selfishness—thinking about myself instead of about God and my neighbour. But so it was.—And so I was walking down the avenue, where it was now very dark, with my head bent to the ground, when I in my turn started at the sound of a woman’s voice, and looking up, saw by the starlight the dim form of Miss Oldcastle standing before me. She spoke first. “Mr Walton, I was very rude to you. I beg your pardon.” “Indeed, I did not think so. I only thought what a blundering awkward fellow I was to startle you as I did. You have to forgive me.” “I fancy”—and here I know she smiled, though how I know I do not know—“I fancy I have made that even,” she said, pleasantly; “for you must confess I startled you now.” “You did; but it was in a very different way. I annoyed you with my rudeness. You only scattered a swarm of bats that kept flapping their skinny wings in my face.” “What do you mean? There are no bats at this time of the year.” “Not outside. In ‘winter and rough weather’ they creep inside, you know.” “Ah! I ought to understand you. But I did not think you were ever like that. I thought you were too good.” “I wish I were. I hope to be some day. I am not yet, anyhow. And I thank you for driving the bats away in the meantime.”