Naturally Deborah wrote one too. And the farmer put himself out greatly to gather together material for her to write upon. He looked up anecdotes, and told her some of his own personal experiences. And who could have had more personal experience than he? Why, he had been one of the best drivers in the country round, and the horses just seemed to know when he held the reins, and curved their necks and champed their bits accordingly. But no, there was no prize gained for that; the solitary prize they gained between them was that little book for home-lessons. He was disappointed, though he never admitted to it. However, he took her face in his two hands and said,— “Never mind, we’ll try again some other time.” He had arranged that she and Maggie should be teachers, and because she had perfect trust in him she thought that teaching was the finest thing in life. Besides, he and she had arranged that when she grew up and he was getting old (she could never bear to think of that, though) they were going to live together. “I’ll make him so really happy,” she used to say to herself, “that he won’t know he is not walking on velvet carpets all the while,” and she meant it. Matrimony had no attractions for Deborah. “How anybody can go and live with a strange man they haven’t known all their lives I don’t know,” she used to ponder occasionally. And she used to sigh. “I expect it’s because their fathers are not half so good as mine. I never met anybody, not anybody, half so perfect.” So the time went on. And every night, since that first night at the beginning of the two years, when she had uttered the prayer for him, she still continued to pray. Repetition instead of weakening only strengthened it. Nightly the silent tears would squeeze themselves between her closed lids because she felt it all so strongly. And every night she rose from her knees comforted. It was as if God stood there and said: “Yes, I will take care of him. He has been very good and very patient through all his losses and failures. And now I am going to let his last years be very happy ones. Only trust in me, and have faith.” One night after this fervent prayer Deborah got into bed feeling in love and charity with all men. Now, she was very frightened of the dark. “I feel as if when I’m in the dark there are things pressing all round me,” she used to say to herself, “so that I cannot breathe.” But she had also been told by various members of the family that people who were frightened of the dark had evil consciences. Therefore she used to try to overcome this excessive fear by earnest prayer. On this particular night, however, she seemed for once to have got the better of her fear, as she neither closed her eyes nor pulled the bed-clothes very high about her head. The real truth was she had got on to one of her favourite lines of thought—the devil.