"I'm not ashamed of them in this instance, Miss Mayhew," he said, dashing them away.
She looked at him wonderingly, and then murmured: "Oh, thank God it has all turned out as it has." After a moment she added: "I've misjudged you also, Mr. Van Berg."
"How? Please tell me, for I feel I have more cause to be disgusted with myself than you ever had."
"Well—how shall I say what I mean? I thought you had more mind than heart."
"It appears to me I've displayed a lamentable lack of both. I must have seemed to you like an animated interrogation point."
"I soon learned you were very greatly my superior," she said simply.
"Miss Mayhew, spare me," he replied quickly, with a deprecatory gesture. "The story you were telling interests me more deeply than you will believe, and I think we shall be better acquainted before the day is over."
"Well, the rest of my story is more easily told than understood, and perhaps your man's reason may not find it very satisfactory. You know the old superstition that the sing of the cross puts to flight the Evil One. I don't believe that, but I believe that the One who suffered on the cross puts him to flight. Mr. Eltinge's simple, downright assertion that Jesus could remedy every earthly trouble—that he would be a patient, helpful Friend—broke the evil spell by which despair had blinded me, and I resolved to try and live if I could. After the old gentleman came out of the church I asked him to let me visit him, and he has been very, very kind. I told him everything. The first day he saw I was greatly discouraged, and told me the history of a young pear-tree against which he was leaning, and which was full of beautiful fruit. He said that on a stormy night it was broken by the wind, and trampled upon by some stray cattle, and he scarcely thought it could live, for it was prostrate on the ground, but he lifted it, and took care of it, and gave nature a chance to restore it. You would think nature was like a kind of mother, to hear him talk. Then he reasoned that Jesus, the Author of nature, would do for me what nature had done for the wounded tree, but that I must not expect too much at first—that I must be receptive and willing to grow patiently as the tree had done, in a new and better life. Thus the tree has become to me an emblem of hope, and I trust a prophecy of my future, although I do not expect ever to reach anything like the perfection suggested by the pear-tree and its delicious fruit. The facts that have impressed me most are that it was bruised, prostrate, and ready to die, and now it is alive and useful. Old Mr. Eltinge loves it, and likes to lean against it, as you will see."
"The fact that has impressed me most in this allegory," groaned
Van Berg, "is that I was the brute that trampled on you."
"You are too severe on yourself," she said earnestly. "I shall have to take your part."