"Well, anyhow," said Hope, "I'm glad it isn't school, and Aunt Alice says she will be very nice."
"I must answer his letter," said Faith.
But she was not very fond of letter-writing and put it off. She left Charity and Hope playing in the orchard that afternoon and went off to visit her friend the shepherd. There was nothing she enjoyed so much as creeping into his little cottage and sitting on a small stool in the chimney corner with the old man. Sandy would come and rest his nose in her lap, and she and Timothy found plenty to say to each other. She told him all about Charlie, and the raft and the Pirate.
"'Tis a pity the little laddie enjoys such poor health," said Timothy to her. "The doctor be such a hearty man, but there—the Lord have a way of His Own with each o' us, and 'tis ordained for him to be weakly. I often sits and thinks o' strength. 'Tis misused in the body, and if so be the soul is strong, 'tisn't so much odds about the body!"
"I wonder how strong my soul is," said Faith. "I'm not very strong in my body, Granny says. Can I make my soul strong, Timothy?"
"Ask the Comforter," said the old man. "He'll strengthen the weak. We are told 'He helpeth our infirmities.'"
"What do infirmities mean?"
"Our weakness and ailments, surely. The Book says, 'We can be strengthened with might in the inner man' by Him."
"Is our inner man our souls?" asked Faith.
"I suppose I have an inner woman—I'm not a man."