“A mighty question, my maid,” saith he,—while Helen looked up in surprise, and Aunt Joyce and Mistress Martin and Milisent fell a-laughing. “With what? The past, the present, or the future?” quoth Father.
“With things, Father,” said I. “With life and every thing.”
“Ah, Edith, hast thou come to that?” saith my Lady Stafford: and she exchanged smiles with Mother.
“Daughter,” Father makes answer, “methinks no man is ever satisfied with life, until he be first satisfied with God. The furthest he can go in that direction, is not to think if he be satisfied or no. A man may be well pleased with lesser things: but to be satisfied, that can he not.”
“‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,’” quoth Mother, softly.
“Ay,” saith Sir Robert; “and wit you, Mistress Edith, what cometh at times to men adrift of the ocean, when all their fresh water is spent?”
“Why, surely, they should find water in plenty in the sea, Sir,” said I.
“Right so do they,” saith he: “and ’tis a quality of the sea-water, that if a man athirst doth once taste the same, his thirst becometh so great that he drinketh thereof again and again, the thirst worsening with every draught, until at last it drives him mad.”
“An apt image of the pleasures of this world,” answers Father. “Ah, how is all nature as God’s picture-book, given to help His dull childer over their tasks!”
“But, Father,”—said I, and stayed.