Rose could not help laughing.
“Little maid,” she said kindly, “thy small shoulders will never hold the world, nor even thy father’s cottage. Hast thou forgot what thou saidst not an half-hour gone, that God takes care of you all?”
“Oh yes, He takes big care of us,” was Cissy’s answer. “He’ll see that we have meat and clothes and so forth, and that Father gets work. But He’ll hardly keep Will and Baby out of mischief, will He? Isn’t that too little for Him?”
“The whole world is but a speck, little Cicely, compared with Him. If He will humble Himself to see thee and me at all, I reckon He is as like to keep Will out of mischief as to keep him alive. It is the very greatness of God that He can attend to all the little things in the world at once. They are all little things to Him. Hast thou not heard that the Lord Jesus said the very hairs of our heads be numbered?”
“Yea, Sir Thomas read that one eve at Ursula’s.”
Sir Thomas Tye was the Vicar of Much Bentley.
“Well,” said Rose, “and isn’t it of more importance to make Will a good lad than to know how many hairs he’s got on his head? Wouldn’t thy father think so?”
“For sure he would,” said Cissy earnestly.
“And isn’t God thy Father?”
Just as Rose asked that, a tall, dark figure turned out of a lane they were passing, and joined them. It was growing dusk, but Rose recognised the Vicar of whom they had just been speaking. Most priests were called “Sir” in those days.