'Yes, but that--that's some time ago.'
'He is made man again. Don't you understand?'
'No, I don't. Sir, I'm not what you might call very intellectual, and it's taken me all my time to find the means to bring these girls up as young women ought to be brought up. I suppose it's because I'm stupid, but, while I'll write myself down a Christian with any man, there's a lot of mystery about religion which is beyond my comprehension. There's a deal about you in the papers. I'm told you've been doing a wonderful amount of good to many who were beyond the reach of human help. For that I say, God bless you!'
The Stranger said: 'Amen.'
'At the same time there's much that is being said which I don't understand. I don't know who you are, or what you are, except that it's pretty clear to me that a man who has been doing what you have can't be very far from heaven; and if I ought to know, I'm sorry. God gave me a good wife, and she gave me three daughters who are like her. She's in heaven--I don't need anyone to tell me that; and if they'll only let her know, when they meet her among the angels, that I loved her while I'd breath, so long as she and they have all they want for ever and for ever, I don't care what God thinks it right to do with me. The end and aim of my life has been to make my wife and her children happy. If they're happy in heaven I'll be happy, too. That's a kind of happiness of which it will not be easy to deprive me, no matter where I am.'
'You are nearer to Me than you think.'
'Am I? We'll hope so. I like you; I like your looks; I like your voice; I like your ways; I like what you have brought into the house with you--it's a sort of a kind of peace. As Ada says--she knows; God tells that girl things which perhaps I'm too stupid to be told--it's good to look upon your face. Whatever happens in the time to come, I never shall be sorry that I've had a chance to see it.'
'You never shall.'
A voice louder than the rest was heard shouting in the street:
'Show us another miracle!'