“Good morning, Mr. Armour!” she said. “—I did not expect to see you so soon again, Mr. Tuke. Will you put me up!”
Richard released Miss Brown, got her into position, and gave his hand to Barbara's foot, as he had seen Mr. Lestrange do. But lifting, he nearly threw her over Miss Brown's back. She burst into her lovely laugh, clutched at a pommel, and held fast.
“I'm not quite ready to go to heaven all at once!” she said.
“I thought you were!” answered Richard. “But indeed I beg your pardon! I might have known how light you must be!”
“I am very heavy for my size!”
“May I walk a little way alongside of you, miss?”
“You have a right; I have offered you my company more than once,” answered Barbara.
They walked a little way in silence.
“Why is there no way to the heaven you believe in, but the terrible gate of death?” asked Richard at length. “If a God of love, as you say your God is, made the world, and could not—for want of room, I suppose—let his creatures live on in it, he would surely have thought of some better way out of it than such a ghastly one!”
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Barbara was her readiness. Very seldom had one to wait for her answer.