He spoke as they walked.  “Thou hast walked a long way.  Art weary?”

“Yes—­no—­I don’t know.”  What did it matter whether she was tired or not?  Baffled curiosity was exciting her.  “You are a stranger here.  Are you a friend of the Smiths?”

“I have experienced the great benefit of being acquainted with the prophet for the last fourteen days.”

“But he’s not a prophet,” said Susannah resentfully.

“Did’st thou never find thyself to be mistaken when thou wast most sure?  Hast thou not perceived that thy Bible tells thee in many different ways that God chooses not as men choose?”

Then with great ardour he preached to her the doctrine of this new Christian sect.  He was a convert; his preaching was rather the eager recital of his own experience, which would out, like some dynamic force within him, than pressure brought wilfully to bear upon her.

He said, “I do not ask thee, friend, if thou art Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian, but I do ask thee, canst thou read the promises of thy Lord to his church and be content with its present low estate?”

Susannah was habituated to some recognition of her beauty; she missed it here, not knowing what she missed.  Smith had known that it was important for her to be sheltered from the wind; he was sorry that her skirts were splashed; his manner, casual as it had been, had at least had in it that element of “because you are you,” the first essential of any human relationship.  But Susannah liked the young Quaker much better than Smith; he was of finer fibre, and her heart was agape for young companionship; so, unconsciously, she resented his indifference, not only as to her sect but as to her sex.

“My father was an Englishman,” she replied with dignity, not knowing why this seemed sufficient answer.

The Quaker proceeded eagerly with his own story.  He had searched the Scriptures diligently, and found in them no warrant for believing that the age of miracles and direct revelations would ever pass from the church.  Then upon the gloom of his deep despondency a star had arisen.  He had heard of a young man, poor, obscure, illiterate, who had dared to come forth saying again, as St. Peter had once said, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.”  He had come far to hear the word, and, upon hearing it, he had found rest for himself and a hope for the world.

His ardour was beginning to tell upon Susannah’s mind.  The desire awoke within her for some fellowship with his enthusiasm.  Stronger was the desire to receive personal recognition from the fair-faced youth.

“I am English,” she repeated, “and of course I think it very wicked to add anything to the Bible; it says so in the Revelation.”

“That to me also was a stumbling-block for a short time; but if thou wilt consider, friend, that the Book of Mormon is the history of God’s dealing with the wild races of our own continent from the time of Noah until the time of Maroni, which would be about three hundred years after the first coming of the Lord, and that this sacred history, so necessary for the instruction of us who must now dwell in the same land, could not be given until this continent was known to the world, thou wilt cease to cavil, and wilt in all humility believe that that which is done of the hand of the Lord cannot be wrong.”