"My dear child, we cannot answer the questions. Trials always appear very hard to those who have them to bear; but maybe God gives us one to save us from some other that would be a great deal harder. And with it there is grace to endure."
"As when you were hurt. I wonder that you could be so patient, Hal!" and the little arms crept up around his neck.
"It was part my nature, you know. I used to be sorry at school, that I wasn't like the other boys; for, somehow, I never was: but, when God knew what I would have to bear, he made me patient, and almost girlish, loving to stay in the house, and all that. If I'd been like Joe, I should have fretted sorely when I found I should never be able to go to sea. He was so full of life and energy, you know, so ambitious, that it would almost have killed him. It was best to have it happen to me."
Dot sighed, her small brain being greatly puzzled.
"But I don't see why every one cannot be happy and prosperous. Isn't there enough to go round to all?"
"God knows best. And, when it troubles me sorely, I think of the little Christ-child, who was born eighteen hundred years ago, all goodness and sweetness and meekness, and of the trials he had to bear for our sakes. All the lowly life, the reviling, the unbelief, the persecution, the being homeless, and sometimes almost friendless, and at the last the shameful death. We shall never have all that, my darling; and so we ought to bear our lesser sorrows patiently."
Dot made no answer.
"My darling," said Hal, glancing at the clock, "ought you not to go to bed? It is almost midnight."
"And you?" reaching up to kiss the dear face.
"I am going to stay here by Granny."