"I told you this rested me," said he, reaching across her for his book; "and now I am never weary long. Shall I rest you with it? What have you been troubling yourself about to-day?"
She did not answer while he was turning over the leaves, and he then said,
"Do you remember this, Fleda 'Truly God is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart.' "
Fleda bent her head down upon her hands.
"I was moody and restless the other day," said Hugh; "desponding of everything; and I came upon this psalm; and it made me ashamed of myself. I had been disbelieving it; and because I could not see how things were going to work good, I thought they were going to work evil. I thought we were wearing out our lives alone here in a wearisome way, and I forgot that it must be the very straightest way that we could get home. I am sure we shall not want anything that will do us good; and the rest I am willing to want and so are you, Fleda?"
Fleda squeezed his hand that was all. For a minute he was silent, and then went on, without any change of tone.
"I had a notion, awhile ago, that I should like if it were possible for me to go to college; but I am quite satisfied now. I have good time and opportunity to furnish myself with a better kind of knowledge, that I shall want where college learning wouldn't be of much use to me; and I can do it, I dare say, better here in this mill, than if we had stayed in New York, and I had lived in our favourite library."
"But, dear Hugh," said Fleda, who did not like this speech in any sense of it; "the two things do not clash! The better man, the better Christian always, other things being equal. The more precious kind of knowledge should not make one undervalue the less?"
"No," he said; but the extreme quietness and simplicity of his reply smote Fleda's fears; it answered her words and waved her thought. She dared not press him further. She sat looking over the road with an aching heart.
"You haven't taken enough of my medicine," said Hugh, smiling. "Listen, Fleda 'All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.' "