"What for?" he bluntly asked.
"To see how you are, father," replied poor Rachel.
"How I am," he echoed, with a suspicious gathering of the brow, "and why shouldn't I be well, just tell me that?"
"It might please Providence to afflict you with sickness," began Rachel.
"Sickness, sickness," he interrupted; indignantly, "I tell you, woman, I never was sick in my life. Is there the sign of illness, or of disease upon me?"
"No, indeed, father, there is not."
"And could you find a man of my age half so healthy, and so strong as I am—just tell me that?" he rather defiantly asked.
Poor Rachel was literal as truth. Instead of eluding a reply, she simply said: "I have seen stronger men than you, father."
"Oh I you have—have you!" he ejaculated eyeing her with very little favour.
And though Rachel was not unconscious of her offence, she added: "And strong or weak, father, are we not all in the hands of God?"