"Why, bless your heart, I knew he was from the Lord, just the moment I saw him coming." "You mean to say you were standing there without a cent, expecting the Lord to help you, and He did?" "'He shall call upon me, and I shall answer him,'" he answered simply, quoting the Ninety-first Psalm. This incident was still the subject of my inquiry when a little colored girl came out of the yard and paused a moment before us. "May I go down across the bridge, papa?" she asked. "Yes," he answered, and then as she tripped away, said: "She's one of my adopted children." He gazed between his knees at the sidewalk. "Have you many others?" "Three." "Raising them, are you?" "Yes." "They seem to think, down in Noank, that living as you do and giving everything away is satisfactory to you but rather hard on your wife and children." "Well, it is true that she did feel a little uncertain in the beginning, but she's never wanted for anything. She'll tell you herself that she's never been without a thing that she really needed, and she's been happy." He paused to meditate, I presume, over the opinion of his former fellow townsmen, and then added: "It's true, there have been times when we have been right where we had to have certain things pretty badly, before they came, but they never failed to come." While he was still talking, Mrs. Potter came around the corner of the house and out upon the sidewalk. She was going to the Saturday evening market in the city below. "Here she is," he said. "Now you can ask her." "What is it?" she inquired, turning a serene and smiling face to me. "They still think, down in Noank, that you're not very happy with me," he said. "They're afraid you want for something once in a while." She took this piece of neighborly interference in better fashion than most would, I fancy. "I have never wanted for anything since I have been married to my husband," she said. "I am thoroughly contented." She looked at him and he at her, and there passed between them an affectionate glance. "Yes," he said, when she had passed after a pleasing little conversation, "my wife has been a great help to me. She has never complained." "People are inclined to talk a little," I said. "Well, you see, she never complained, but she did feel a little bit worried in the beginning." "Have you a mission or a church here in Norwich?" "No, I don't believe in churches." "Not in churches?" "No. The sight of a minister preaching the word of God for so much a year is all a mockery to me." "What do you believe in?"