any facts as facts, and
neither they nor his refusal of them will hurt him. He may not a whit
the less be living in and by the truth. He may be quite unable to answer
the doubts of another, but if, in the progress of his life, those doubts
should present themselves to his own soul, then will he be able to meet
them: he is in the region where all true answers are gathered. He may be
unable to receive this or that embodiment or form of truth, not having
yet grown to its level; but it is no matter so long as when he sees a
truth he does it: to see and not do would at once place him in eternal
danger. Hence a man of ordinary intellect and little imagination, may
yet be so radiant in nobility as, to the true poet-heart, to be right
worshipful. There is in the man who does the truth the radiance of life
essential, eternal--a glory infinitely beyond any that can belong to the
intellect, beyond any that can ever come within its scope to be judged,
proven, or denied by it. Through experiences doubtful even to the soul
in which they pass, the life may yet be flowing in. To know God is to be
in the secret place of all knowledge; and to trust Him changes the
atmosphere surrounding mystery and seeming contradiction, from one of
pain and fear to one of hope: the unknown may be some lovely truth in
store for us, which yet we are not good enough to apprehend. A man may
dream all night that he is awake, and when he does wake, be none the
less sure that he is awake in that he thought so all the night when he
was not; but he will find himself no more able to prove it than he would
have been then, only able to talk better about it. The differing
consciousnesses of the two conditions can not be _produced_ in evidence,
or embodied in forms of the understanding. But my main point is this,
that not to be intellectually certain of a truth, does not prevent the
heart that loves and obeys that truth from getting its truth-good, from
drawing life from its holy _factness_, present in the love of it.

As yet Dorothy had no plans, except to carry out those of her father,
and, mainly for Juliet's sake, to remove to the old house as soon as
ever the work there was completed. But the repairs and alterations were
of some extent, and took months. Nor was she desirous of shortening
Juliet's sojourn with the Polwarths: the longer that lasted with safety,
the better for Juliet, and herself too, she thought.

On Christmas eve, the curate gave his wife a littl