"Madam," said Cicely, suddenly, "would you be offended with me if I said a word to you?"
"My good Cicely, why should I? Speak your mind."
"Seems to me, Madam," said Cicely, confidentially, "as you haven't asked the Lord about this trouble. And though He knows all things, yet He likes to be asked and told about 'em: He says so somewheres. Now, if I was you (asking your pardon, Madam), and didn't like for to tell Mrs. Celia (and I'm sure I shouldn't), I'd just go and tell Him. It'd come a sight easier, would telling her, after that. You see, Madam, the Lord don't put troubles on us that He don't know nothing about. He's tried 'em all Himself, and He knows just where they pinches. And when He must needs be bring one on us, or we shall be running off down the wrong road like so many chickens, He whispers like with it, 'Don't be down-hearted, child; I've tried it, and I know.'"
"Cicely, how did you come to know all this?" inquired her mistress in astonishment.
"Bless your heart, Madam, I don't know nothing!" humbly disclaimed Cicely,—"never did, nor never shall. 'Tis with the Lord's lessons like as with other lessons;—takes the like of me a month or more to spell out a word, where there be folks'd read it off plain. I knows nothing, only I knows the Lord."
Madam Passmore made no answer, but in her secret heart she wondered, for the first time, whether the one thing which Cicely owned to knowing were not worth a hundredfold all the things which she knew.
"Sit down, Celia, my dear. I will now tell you all I know."
Madam Passmore spoke rather sadly, and Celia sat down with a beating heart.
"Celia," said her mother again, "would you like me to tell you right at once, or by degrees?"
"At once, if you please, Mother. Let me know the worst."