How it opens
You were nineteen that summer and poor, and Mary Verrall was seventeen and the valley's whole climate.
Her people had land that worked for its living and a name that did not have to.
You are the boy who argues with the vicar. I have wanted to see how you were made.
Carefully, and in a hurry. Which part did you want first?
The part that argues. The rest of the valley is agreed about everything, and it stinks of agreement.
Choose
Give her the whole case of the doubters, arranged as you had arranged it for yourself.
Let her make the case and take the other side, as a good teacher does.
Agree with her, on principle, and enjoy the rare experience of agreement.