“Yes, if you please, miss. I don't mind what _you_ say, because the God you would have me believe in, is like yourself; and if he be, and be like you, he will set everything tight as soon as ever he can.” “What Mr. Wingfold said was this--that it was not fair, when a man had made something for a purpose, to say it was not good before we knew what his purpose with it was. 'I don't like,' he said, 'even my wife to look at my verses before they're finished! God can't hide away his work till it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take care what we say about it. God wants to do something better with people than people think.'” “Is he a poet?” said Richard. “But when I think how he looked at the sunrise--of course he is! That man don't talk a bit like a clergyman, miss; he talks just like any other man--only better than I ever heard man talk before. I couldn't help liking him from the first, and wishing I might meet him again! But I think I could put him a question or two yet that would puzzle him!” “I don't know,” answered Barbara; “but one thing I am sure of, that, if you did puzzle him, he would say he was puzzled, and must have time to think it over!” “That is to behave like a man!--and after all, clergymen are men, and there must be good men among them!--But do you think, miss, you could get Arthur's address from Alice? The office is not where it used to be.” “I dare say I could.” “You see, miss, I shall have to go back to London.” There was a tone and tremble in his words, to which, not to the words themselves, Barbara made reply. “Will anyone dare to say,” she rejoined, “that we shall not meet again?” “The sort of God you believe in, miss, would not say it,” he answered; “but the sort of God my mother believes in would.” “I know nothing about other people's Gods,” rejoined Barbara. “Indeed,” she added, “I know very little about my own; but I mean to know more: Mr. Wingfold will teach me!” “Take care he don't overpersuade you, miss. You have been very good to me, and I couldn't bear you to be made a fool of. Only _he_ can't be just like the rest!” “He will persuade me of nothing that doesn't seem to me true--be certain of that, Richard. And if it please God to part us, I will pray and keep on praying to him to let us meet again. If I have been good to you, you have been much better to me!” Richard was not elated. He only thought, “How kind of her!” CHAPTER XXXIII. _RICHARD AND VIXEN_.