“How delightful! To think that I am understood even when I don’t understand myself!”
“But even if I am wrong, you are yet understood. The blessedness of life is that we can hide nothing from God. If we could hide anything from God, that hidden thing would by and by turn into a terrible disease. It is the sight of God that keeps and makes things clean. But as we are both, by mutual confession, fond of this kind of weather, what do you say to going out with me? I have to visit a sick woman.”
“You don’t mean Mrs. Coombes, papa?”
“No, my dear. I did not hear she was ill.”
“O, I daresay it is nothing much. Only old nursey said yesterday she was in bed with a bad cold, or something of that sort.”
“We’ll call and inquire as we pass,—that is, if you are inclined to go with me.”
“How can you put an if to that, papa?”
“I have just had a message from that cottage that stands all alone on the corner of Mr. Barton’s farm—over the cliff, you know—that the woman is ill, and would like to see me. So the sooner we start the better.”
“I shall have done my breakfast in five minutes, papa. O, here’s mamma!—Mamma, I’m going out for a walk in the rain with papa. You won’t mind, will you?”
“I don’t think it will do you any harm, my dear. That’s all I mind, you know. It was only once or twice when you were not well that I objected to it. I quite agree with your papa, that only lazy people are glad to stay in-doors when it rains.”