"Even if we suffer here, in this world, every affliction, we know that there is a blessed recompense in the other world." "Humph!--how ?" said the skeptic.
"By faith ?" "What is faith ?" he said, looking carelessly at the girl.
"I don't know that I can define it better than belief and trust in God," said Redbud.
These were the words which Verty had written on the paper.
The glance of the lawyer fell upon the young man's face, and from it passed to the innocent countenance of Redbud.

She had evidently uttered the words without the least thought of the similarity.
"Humph," said the lawyer, frowning, "that is very fine, Miss; but suppose we cannot see anything to give us a very lively--faith, as you call it." "Oh, but you may, sir!" "How ?" "Everywhere there are evidences of God's goodness and mercy.

You cannot doubt that." A shadow passed over the rough face.
"I do doubt it," was on his lips, but he could not, rude as he was, utter such a sentence in presence of the pure, childlike girl.
"Humph," he said, with his habitual growl, "suppose a man is made utterly wretched in this world--" "Yes, sir." "And without any fault of his own suffers horribly," continued the lawyer, sternly.
"We are all faulty, sir." "I mean--did anybody ever hear such reasoning! Excuse me, but I am a little out of sorts," he growled, apologetically--"I mean that you may suppose a man to suffer some peculiar torture--torture, you understand--which he has not deserved.

I suppose that has happened; how can such a man have your faith, and love, and trust, and all that--if we must talk theology!" growled the bearish speaker.
"But, Mr.Rushton," said Redbud, "is not heaven worth all the world and its affections ?" "Yes--your heaven is." "_My_ heaven-- ?" "Yes, yes--heaven!" cried the lawyer, impatiently--"everybody's heaven that chooses.

But you were about to say--" "This, sir: that if heaven is so far above earth, and those who are received there by God, enjoy eternal happiness--" "Very well!" "That this inestimable gift is cheaply bought by suffering in this world;--that the giver of this great good has a right to try even to what may seem a cruel extent, the faith and love of those for whom he decrees this eternal bliss.