Toppie told her that her father was writing a book on the Stoics. “He has, fortunately, a great deal of time. It’s a tiny parish; just right for a scholar like my father; more a scholar than a priest, I sometimes think. He is rather shy with people and his life here suits him perfectly.”
“Are not Stoics the people who do not mind the things other people mind?” Alix inquired.
“They cared, perhaps, so much for some things that other things did not hurt,” said Toppie, smiling. “I don’t know much about them, myself, though; I’m not at all learned. I’ve never been to school.”
“I am glad you are not learned. One may go to school and yet not be learned; as you can see from me,” Alix smiled back. “But I can’t imagine what those things can be that keep us from being hurt; can you?”
Toppie looked at her meditatively for a moment. “You said you were not dévote; but doesn’t your religion tell you what things they are?” she asked.
“Le bon Dieu, do you mean?” Alix inquired doubtfully. “La Sainte Vierge? One’s Guardian Angel?”
“Yes. When you go to church, to confession, aren’t you told?”
“We are told a great deal; but I am afraid I have never paid much attention. I only go to confession once a year. Maman insists on it. I do not like it,” said Alix. “Had the Stoics a bon Dieu and a Sainte Vierge to console them, then?”
“Oh, no! no!—you very ignorant child!” Toppie was perforce smiling again, though Alix saw that she was distressed. “They lived very nobly without our faith to help them.—In my church we do not have your beautiful Sainte Vierge to look to, you know.”
“I know,” said Alix. “And I do not understand why you should leave her out. I like her better than le bon Dieu, I must confess. But then rectors could not feel as we do about a Sainte Vierge, could they?”