"I often think you're wonderfully young for your years, Mr. Bickers."
Another laugh of satisfaction. "I'm younger than I was a score years back; and that's a fact, Arthur."
"What's the secret of it?"
"Why," says Mr. Bickers, "there is a secret to it, sure enough. It's this way, Arthur. Now you put the solder-pot on the lamp again. There's matches. This way—I was fifty-two years growing old, and I've been close on nineteen years growing young. Ever since— Hullo! careful with it!"
"Ever since—?" says Mr. Wriford, his head averted, fumbling with the lamp, fumbling with his thoughts.
"Ever since our Essie came to us."
"Yes," says Mr. Wriford, and adds "Yes, that's much what Mrs. Bickers was telling me only yesterday."
"Why, it's the same with both of us," says Mr. Bickers; and then changes his voice to the voice that Mr. Wriford recognises for that in which he reads the scriptural portions at night. "You mark this from me, Arthur," Mr. Bickers continues. "You're a young man. You mark what I tell you—"
Necessary to face Mr. Bickers while he tells—to face that serene old countenance, those steady eyes, that earnest voice. "Prayers aren't always answered the way you expect, Arthur. You'll find that. There's man's way of reckoning how a thing ought to be done, and there's God's way. We'd had uncommon trouble, Mrs. Bickers an' me, a score years back, and we prayed our ways for to ease it. Essie came. God's way. Our Essie come to us a blessing straight out of heaven."
Necessary to face him, necessary to hear in his voice, to see in his eyes, to watch in the radiation that fills up the careworn lines about his mouth and on his brow—necessary to hear and to see there what "Our Essie" means to him.