"I have heard many good people say as much. Do you think it wicked?"
"I can only say that I have never liked you so well since I knew your thoughts about your sister. How much more must all good spirits despise us when we distrust the mind of God."
"You speak unkindly. I cannot alter my doubt."
"No. You are endowed with beauty and health, intellect and heart. You have done many things well. But this, I suppose, is a radical defect."
She did not look satisfied. "How can I alter it?"
"If I were you I would go on laying out the orchard you were working at in spring. You could put in a great many of the small trees yourself. I have gained so much from delving that I offer you the same occupation with a certificate of merit."
"But I can't get the rows straight alone," she said, "or prepare the ground. It is all as it was when the Godsons left. It was you who made me send them away."
"And now I have come to ask you to take young Godson back," he said. So he told the young man's story. "He will have time to help in the orchard if he is employed about your father."
"Do you think there is no risk?" she asked, with the grave dignity that the peculiar isolation of her life had given.