“It is an awful thing,” said Polwarth, “to think--that this feeble individuality of ours, the offspring of God’s individuality, should have some power, and even more will than power, to close its door against him, and keep house without him!” “But what sort of a house?” murmured Wingfold. “Yes, uncle,” said Rachel; “but think how he keeps about us, haunting the doors and windows like the very wind, watching to get in! And sometimes he makes of himself a tempest, that both doors and windows fly open, and he enters in fear and dismay.” The prophetic in the uncle was the poetic in the niece. “For you and me, uncle,” she went on, “he made the doors and windows so rickety that they COULD not keep him out.” “Ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost,” said the curate, almost unconsciously. “Some of us a little ruinous!” rejoined the girl. So full was her soul of a lively devotion that she took the liberties of a child of the house with sacred things. “But, Mr. Wingfold,” she continued. “I must tell you one more curious thing about my dreams: I NEVER dream of being crooked and dwarfish. I don’t dream that I am straight either; I suppose I feel all right, and therefore never think about it. That makes me fancy my soul must be straight.--Don’t you think so, sir?” “Indeed I do,” said Wingfold warmly. “I’m afraid I shall be telling you some of my dreams some day.” “We are rather given to that weakness,” said Polwarth,--“so much so as to make me fear for our brains sometimes. But a crooked rose-tree may yet bear a good rose.” “Ah! you are thinking of my poor father, uncle, I know,” said Rachel. “His was a straight stem and a fine rose, only overblown, perhaps.--I don’t think I need be much afraid of that, for if I were to go out of my mind, I should not have strength to live--unless indeed I knew God through all the madness. I think my father did in a way.” “It was quite plain he did,” answered her uncle, “and that in no feeble way either.--Some day I must tell you,”--here he turned to Wingfold--“about that brother of mine, Rachel’s father. I should even like to show you a manuscript he left behind him--surely one of the strangest ever written! It would be well worth printing if that would ensure its falling into the hands of those who could read through the madness.--But we have talked quite long enough for your head, child; I will take Mr. Wingfold into the next room.” CHAPTER VIII. THE BUTTERFLY.