tions, calling them out into the deaf and dumb abyss of the
universe.

'If God was as good as I would like him to be, the devils themselves
would repent,' he said, turning away.

Then he turned again, and looking down upon Robert like a sorrowful
eagle from a crag over its harried nest, said,

'If I only knew that God was as good as--that woman, I should die
content.'

Robert heard words of blasphemy from the mouth of an angel, but his
respect for Ericson compelled a reply.

'What woman, Mr. Ericson?' he asked.

'I mean Miss Letty, of course.'

'But surely ye dinna think God's nae as guid as she is? Surely he's as
good as he can be. He is good, ye ken.'

'Oh, yes. They say so. And then they tell you something about him that
isn't good, and go on calling him good all the same. But calling anybody
good doesn't make him good, you know.'

'Then ye dinna believe 'at God is good, Mr. Ericson?' said Robert,
choking with a strange mingling of horror and hope.

'I didn't say that, my boy. But to know that God was good, and fair, and
kind--heartily, I mean, not half-ways, and with ifs and buts--my boy,
there would be nothing left to be miserable about.'

In a momentary flash of thought, Robert wondered whether this might not
be his old friend, the repentant angel, sent to earth as a man, that he
might have a share in the redemption, and work out his own salvation.
And from this very moment the thoughts about God that had hitherto been
moving in formless solution in his mind began slowly to crystallize.

The next day, Eric Ericson, not without a piece in ae pouch and money
in another, took his way home, if home it could be called where neither
father, mother, brother, nor sister awaited his return. For a season
Robert saw him no more.

As often as his name was mentioned, Miss Letty's eyes would grow hazy,
and as often she would make some comical remark.

'Puir fallow!' she would say, 'he was ower lang-leggit for this warld.'

Or again:

'Ay, he was a braw chield. But he canna live. His feet's ower sma'.'

Or yet again:

'Saw ye ever sic a gowk, to mak sic a wark aboot sittin' doon an' haein'
his feet washed, as gin that cost a body onything!'

CHAPTER XVI. MR. LAMMIE'S FARM.

One of the first warm mornings in the beginning of summer, the boy woke
early, and lay awake, as was his custom, thinking. The sun, in all
the indescribable purity of its morning light, had kindled a spot of
brilliance just abo