"I shouldn't have guessed you to be more than eighteen. Don't you get desperately tired of being always ill—not able to go about and amuse yourself? Don't you feel cross sometimes?" Doris recalled her own late mood of discontent, her impatience under little home-worries, her half-imaginary grievances. What did they matter, compared with what Winnie had to bear?
"I try not—" very low. "It is what—what God chooses for me—so it is all right."
"Does that really help you, Winnie?"
"Yes; often. It ought—always." Doris's gaze drew her on. "Don't you know those lines by Trench—
"'Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident;
It is the very place God meant for thee!'"
"And if He meant it—chose it—arranged it all—don't you see?—it must be right, because He loves me."
"The place—perhaps. But the pain—"
"That's part of it all—part of what He gives me to bear. It is all from Him—and through it all He loves. He couldn't give me more to bear than it's right for me to have—because He loves me."
Doris laid her gloved hand on Winnie's.