"Yes," answered Hugh very gravely, "I saw that very soon, but not as plainly as you have put it, father."
"I have sometimes felt it a great comfort in the perplexities which arise in our hearts and lives to do as Paul says—'Take the shield of faith whereby we may quench the fiery darts of the wicked one'—and I believe it is applicable to you too, Hugh.
"When questions come up which I cannot answer, I say to myself, 'I will take refuge under my faith in my heavenly Father; if I hide under His shadow, the fiery darts will have no power. He has said so; He knows best.'
"So you, Hugh, take refuge under your faith in your earthly father, say 'he knows best;' and while you are young it will help you to find an answer, when otherwise you might be tempted to do what you would grieve in after years to have done."
"But you don't think drinking a glass of beer or wine wrong in itself, father?"
"Wrong for me, thinking as I do; wrong for you, because of my convictions, and my commands to you concerning them."
Hugh seemed entirely satisfied; for was he not forgiven? And then they turned to other subjects, though Alice's eyes were looking wonderingly at them all.
"Mother," she said suddenly, as Mrs. Headley's white shawl fell from her shoulders, "you have a different dress on from any you had before you went away, and it——has crêpe on it."
"Yes," answered her mother gently; "but my heart is not in mourning."
"But——," said Alice, not liking to ask more.