can't get to sleep at night until twelve o'clock because she has to
pray about so many things that might happen to us poor forlorns if she
didn't. I am mighty thankful to her, for I don't have time to pray
much. I am so tired when I go to bed. I just say 'God, you know,' and
go to sleep. He understands, 'cause Miss Prissy has told him all about
it beforehand."

"I just guess He does--without Miss Talbot's telling Him either," I
answered as I came and sat on the front steps beside Roxanne. "And
another thing, Roxanne--I--er, I don't quite know how to say it--but
you--you talk like you are--that is, you seem to be friends with God
just like you are with Tony Luttrell and Belle and Miss Prissy and the
Colonel--and me," I continued with embarrassment.

"I am," answered Roxanne, with beautiful positiveness. "I decided to
have Him for one of my friends 'most two years ago after Father and
Mother died almost together. When Douglass told me that we would have
to sell Byrd Mansion and move down here in this old cottage that had
been great-grandfather's gardener's house, with only Uncle Pompey to
help me take care of it and him and Lovelace Peyton, he asked me if I
couldn't stand by. I held my head up just as high as great-grandmother
Byrd does in her portrait and said: 'Yes!' 'Then God help you,' he
said, and he hugged me up under his chin. Then we all moved; and God
_has_ helped."

"He must have," I answered devoutly, meaning what I said. And as I
spoke something in me was loosened and I felt a wonderful difference
about God. The God that a governess explains out of a book to you and
the One that really comes down and helps a girl friend so that she can
speak of Him with confidence as a friend, are two distinct people. I