“I was at your church, Mr. Wesley. I like Parson Rodney. I did not go to his church.” He shook his head. “I like not such an answer, child.'Twould grieve me to learn that there were many of my hearers who would frame the same excuse.” She hung her head. “I am sorry, sir,” she said. “It was my intent to go to Parson Rodney's church, if only to see how vast a difference there was 'twixt--that is--I mean, Mr. Wesley, that--that my intention was to be in church, only when I saw that you had wended your way alone through the valley, not going in the direction of Mr. Hartwell's house, but far away from it--what could one do, sir, who knew that you could not have had a bite to eat since early morning--and after such a preaching and an after-meeting that filled up another fasting hour? 'He has no one to look after him,' said my mother in my ear. 'He is a forlorn man who thinks that he is doing God's service by forgetting that his body must be nourished if his soul is to remain sound.'” “That is what your mother said--'tis shrewd enough. And what did you reply? Mind that the answer hath a bearing upon your staying away from church, Nelly.” “I said naught, Mr. Wesley; but what I did was to hurry to our home and pack you a basket of humble victuals and--here it is.” She picked up a reed basket from the grass and brought it beside him. Kneeling then on a stone she raised the lid and showed him a dish of cooked pilchards, some cakes of wheat bread and a piece of cream cheese laid on a pale green lettuce. She had spread the coarsest and whitest napkin he had ever seen on the face of the crag at his elbow, and with the air of a bustling housewife laid a plate and knife and fork for him, talking all the time--reproving him quite gravely and even severely for his inattention to his stomach--there was no picking and choosing of words in Cornwall or elsewhere during that robust century. She gave him no chance of defending himself, but rattled on upbraiding him as if he had been a negligent schoolboy, until she had laid out his picnic for him, and had spread the butter on one of the home-made cakes, saying: “There, now, you must not get upon your feet until you have put down all that is before you. If you was to make the attempt to do so your long fast would make you so faint that you would run a chance of tottering over the cliff.” He saw that there was no need for him to say a word. What could he say in the face of such attention to his needs as the girl was showing? “I submit with a good grace, my dear,” he said when her work was done and she paused for breath. “Why should not I submit? I am, as you said, weak by reason of hunger, and lo, a table is spread for me with such delicacies as would tickle the appetite of a man who has just partaken of a heavy meal, and I am not that man. Happier than the prophet, I am fed not by ravens, but by a white dove.”