“Well, I don't! Nobody has taken the trouble to tell me, and I haven't read it.--But I'll just give you a little bit of my life to look at. I was with my father and mother for a while in Sydney, and there a terrible lie was told about me, and everybody believed it, and nobody would speak to me. Somehow people are always ready to believe lies--even people who would not tell lies! We had to leave Sydney in consequence, and to this day everybody in Sydney believes me a wicked, ugly girl!--Now I know I am not! See--I can hold my face to the stars! It was trying to help a poor creature that nobody would do anything for, that got the lie said of me. I thought my first business was to take care of my neighbour, and I did it, and that's what came of it!” “And you believe in a God that would let that come to you for doing what was good?” said Richard, with an indignation that exploded in all directions. “Stop! stop! the thing's not over yet! The world is not done with yet! What if there be a God who loves me, and cares as little what people say about me, because he knows the truth, as I care about it because _I_ know the truth!--But that is not what I wanted to say; this is it: if such lies were told, and believed, about an innocent girl trying to do her duty, why may not people have told lies about God, and other people believed them? The same thing may hold with the book. Perhaps it does not speak such lies about God, but stupid or lying people have said that it speaks them, and other people have believed those, and said it again. I hope with all my heart you are saying what is false when you say there is no God; but that is not nearly so bad as saying there is a God who is not good. I can't think anybody believing in a God like that, would have been able to write a book about him that so many good people care to read.” Richard was thoroughly silenced now. I do not mean that he was at all convinced, but how could he find much to say with that appeal of Barbara to her own sore experience echoing in his heart! And they were just at the door of the cottage. He knocked, and receiving no answer, opened the door, and they went in.