“Thank you, Mrs. Locke. I’ll sit here on the mattress.”

Richard had not forgotten how the eyes of the picture used to draw his, and he had often wondered since whether it could be the portrait of his mother.

In a few minutes Mrs. Locke reappeared, carrying the portrait, which had never been put in a frame. Knotting the cord, Richard hung it again on the old nail. It showed a well-formed face, but was very flat and wooden. The eyes, however, were comparatively well-painted. It seemed to Richard that he could read both sorrow and disappointment in them, with a yearning after something she could not have.

He went back down and out for a walk in the park with Wingfold. There Richard told his friend as much as he knew of his story, describing as well as he understood them the changes that had passed upon him in the matter of his thoughts toward and relation to God, making no secret of what he owed to the spiritual influences of Barbara.

After listening with profound attention, Wingfold told him of his own awakening, saying that he had passed through an experience in many ways like his own, with the same root doubts. He added that, long before he was sure of anything, it had become possible for him to keep going, and that he was still—as strong as his belief now was—looking and hoping and waiting for a fuller dawn of what had made his being already blessed.

They discussed whether Wingfold should accept the baronet’s careless invitation, and concluded it better that he not stay to dinner. Then, as there was yet time, and it was partly on Wingfold’s way, they set out for the smithy.

— Fifty —

Wingfold and Arthur Manson

When the first delight of his meeting with his grandfather was past, Richard went in to see Arthur. He had been all this time with Simon, to whom Richard had sent enough saved from his allowance to prevent him from being a burden. He looked much better, and was enchanted to see his brother again, and learn the good news of his recognition by his father.

“Is Alice still in the old place?” Richard asked. “I haven’t heard of her for some time.”

“Don’t you know?” exclaimed Arthur. “She’s been at the parsonage for months and months! Mrs. Wingfold went and fetched her away from London, to work for her and be near me. She’s happy now, and says if everybody was as good as her master and mistress, there would be no misery left in the world.”

“I don’t doubt it,” answered Richard. “But I’ve just parted with Mr. Wingfold, and he didn’t say a word about her!”

“When anything has to be done, Mr. Wingfold never forgets, but does it,” said Arthur. “But once he’s done a thing, he forgets all about it, and never mentions it to anyone.”

Richard then inquired eagerly about what Wingfold had done for his brother, and he learned this. First of all he had, by lending him books and talking to him, found out what was his bent and what he was capable of. For months he could hardly wake any interest in him, the poor fellow was so weak and weary. But at last he got him to observe a little. Then he began to set him certain tasks, and as he was an invalid, the first was what he called, “The task of twelve o’clock”—which was, for a quarter of an hour from every noon during a month, to write down what he saw going on in the world.