'I know he did not,' said Fernando quietly, but gazing at the purple book in the clergyman's hands.
'Did you want this?' said Mr. Audley; 'or can I find anything in it for you?'
'Thank you;' and there was a pause. The offended manner towards Mr. Audley had been subsiding of late into friendliness under his constant attentions, and Fernando's desire for an answer prevailed at last. 'Felix told me to read the Life of Christ,' he said, not irreverently, 'and that it would show me He must be True.'
'I hope and trust that so it may be,' said Mr. Audley, more moved than he could bear to show, but with fervour in his voice far beyond his words.
'Felix,' said Fernando, resting on the name, 'Felix does seem as if he must be right, Mr. Audley; can it be really as he says--and Lance--that their belief makes them like what they are?'
'And you don't say so only because you are a minister?' asked the boy distrustfully.
'I say so because I know it. I knew that it is the Christian faith that makes all goodness, long before I was a minister.'
'But I have seen plenty of Christians that were not in the least like Felix Underwood.'
'So have I; but in proportion as they live up to their faith, they have what is best in him.'
'I should like to be like him,' mused Fernando; 'I never saw such a fellow. He, and little Lance too, seem to belong to something bright and strong, that seems inside and outside, and I can't lay hold of what it is.'
'One day you will, my dear boy,' said Mr. Audley. 'Let me try to help you.'
Fernando scarcely answered, save by half a smile, and a long sigh of relief: but when Mr. Audley put his hand over the long brown fingers, they closed upon it.
'Dost thou believe, he said, that Grace Itself can reach this grief? With a feeble voice and a woeful eye-- "Lord, I believe," was the sinner's reply, "Help Thou mine unbelief."' _Southey._
By the beginning of the Christmas holidays, Fernando Travis was able to lie on a couch in Mr. Audley's sitting-room. His recovery was even tardier than had been expected, partly from the shock, and partly from the want of vigour of the tropical constitution: and he still seemed to be a great way from walking, though there was no reason to fear that the power would not return. His father wrote, preparing for a journey to Oregon, and seemed perfectly satisfied, and he was becoming very much at home with his host.