“Some people may have to be a good deal astonished as to what can and cannot be,” returned the curate. “But never mind what people say: make your appeal to the saviour of men about whatever troubles you. Cry to the faithful creator, his Father. To be a faithful creator needs a might of truth and loving-kindness of which our narrow hearts can ill conceive. Ask much of God, my boy, and be very humble and very hoping.” After all such utterances, Leopold would look his thanks, and hold his peace. “I wish it was over,” he said once. “So do I,” returned the curate. “But be of good courage, I think nothing will be given you to bear that you will not be able to bear.” “I can bear a great deal more than I have had yet. I don’t think I shall ever complain. That would be to take myself out of his hands, and I have no hope anywhere else.--Are you any surer about him, sir, than you used to be?” “At least I hope in him far more,” answered Wingfold. “Is that enough?” “No. I want more.” “I wish I could come back and tell you that I am alive and all is true.” “I would rather have the natural way of it, and get the good of not knowing first.” “But if I could tell you I had found God, then that would make you sure.” Wingfold could not help a smile:--as if any assurance from such a simple soul could reach the questions that tossed his troubled spirit! “I think I shall find all I want in Jesus Christ,” he said. “But you can’t see him, you know.” “Perhaps I can do better. And at all events I can wait,” said the curate. “Even if he would let me, I would not see him one moment before he thought it best. I would not be out of a doubt or difficulty an hour sooner than he would take me.” Leopold gazed at him and said no more. CHAPTER XVIII. THE MEADOW. As the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew to a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the leaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them “yellow and black and pale and hectic red,” the fancy seized him to get out of the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the meadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she gathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well. He liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to share it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful nurse, feared it might hurt him. “What DOES it matter?” he returned. “Is life so sweet that every moment more of it is a precious boon? After I’m gone a few days, you won’t know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off you! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it would be to me to get into that meadow.”