"Mr. Shubrick, you are a very comforting talker!" said Dolly.
"Nay, I am only repeating the Lord's words of comfort."
"So I am to study, and yet study will not do it," said Dolly; "and I am to pray, and yet prayer will not give it."
"Study will not do it, certainly. But when the Lord bestows His light, study becomes illumination. No, prayer does not give it, either; yet you must ask if yon would have. And Christ's promise to one who loves Him and keeps His commandments is,—you recollect it,—'I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.'"
"That will do, Mr. Shubrick, thank you," said Dolly rising. "You need not say any more. I think I understand. And I am very much obliged to you."
Mr. Shubrick made no answer. They went saunteringly along under the great trees, rather silent both of them after that. As the sun got lower the beauty of the wooded park ground grew more exceeding. All that a most noble growth of trees could show, scattered and grouped, all that a most lovely undulation of ground surface could give, in slope and vista and broken light and shadow, was gilded here and there with vivid gold, or filled elsewhere with a sunny, misty glow of vapourous rays, as if the air were streaming with gold dust among the trees. All tints and hues of greensward, moss, and fern, under all conditions of illumination, met their wondering eyes; and for a while there was little spoken but exclamations of delight and discussion of beautiful effects that came under review. They went on so, from point to point, by much the same way that Dolly had taken on her first visit to the park; till they came out as she had done from the thinner part of the woodland, and stood at the edge of the wide plain of open greensward which stretched on up to the House. Here they stood still. The low sun was shining over it all; the great groups of oaks and elms stood in full revealed beauty and majesty; and in the distance the House looked superbly down over the whole.
"There is hardly anything about Brierley that I like better than this," said Dolly. "Isn't it lovely? I always delight in this great slope of wavy green ground; and see how it is emphasised and set off by those magnificent trees? And the House looks better from nowhere than from here."
"It is very noble—it is exceeding beautiful," Mr. Shubrick assented.
"Now this, I suppose, one could not see in America," Dolly went on; "nor anything like it."
"America has its own beauties; doubtless nothing like this. There is the dignity of many generations here. But, Miss Dolly, as I said before,—it would be difficult to use all this for Christ."