The absurdity of the thing struck Richard sharply,
but he feared to hurt the girl and lose her confidence.
“Her behaviour is only a kind of insolent prayer!”
he said. “—Has the clergyman ever
spoken to her about it?”
“I don’t think he has. He spoke to
me, but when I said he ought to speak to her, he did
not seem to see it. I should speak to her fast
enough if it were my church!”
“I dare say he thinks her mind is affected,
and fears to make her worse,” said Richard.
“But he might, I think, persuade her that, as
she is not on good terms with the person who lives
in the church, she ought to stay away.”
Barbara looked at him with doubtful inquiry, but Richard
went on.
“What sort of a man is the clergyman?”
he asked.
“I don’t know. He seems always thinking
about things, and never finding out. I suppose
he is stupid!”
“That does not necessarily follow,” said
Richard with a smile, reflecting how hard it would
be for the man to answer one of a thousand questions
he might put to him in connection with his trade.
“Your poor mother must be very unhappy!”
he added.
“She may well be! I am no comfort to her.
She never heeds me; or she tells me to go and amuse
myself—she is busy. My father has his
twin, and poor mamma has nobody!”
BARBARA AND OTHERS.
At this point, Barbara’s friend came into the
room, and they went away together.
Theodora, so named by her mother because she was born
on a Sunday, was a very different girl from Barbara.
Nominally friends, neither understood the other.
Theodora was the best of the family, but that did not
suffice to make her interesting. She was short,
stout, rather clumsy, with an honest, thick-featured
face, and entirely without guile. Even when she
saw it, she could not believe it there. She had
not much sympathy, but was very kind. She never
hesitated to do what she was sure was right; but then,
except for rules, many of them far from right themselves,
she would have been almost always in doubt. Anything
in the shape of a rule, she received as an angel from
heaven. If all the rules she obeyed had been
right, and she had seen the right in them, she would
have been making rapid progress; as it was, her progress
was very slow. How Barbara and she managed to
entertain each other, I find it hard to think; but
all forms of innocent humanity must have much in common.
A contrast, nevertheless, the two must have presented
to any power able to read them. Barbara was like
a heath of thyme and wild roses and sudden winds;
Theodora like a Dutch garden without its flowers.
They never quarrelled. I suspect they did not
come near enough to quarrel.
