"Yes," answered Esther in a low voice, "but not as often as I ought to. I shouldn't be so frightened often, if I thought about Him more."
"Why? What difference would it make?"
"Oh, don't you see? Suppose you were frightened by something, and felt all alone, with nobody to help you. And then suppose you remembered that your father was looking at you all the time through a window somewhere with a glass, and that he saw you though you didn't see him. And if you knew that he could send somebody to help you if you wanted it really, why, you wouldn't be afraid any more, would you?"
"No, I suppose not. It would be silly."
"I think, perhaps, it is silly; and what is silly can be a sin, I think," said Esther steadily. "I want not to be frightened so often, and I think that is the sin that most easily besets me. I am going to try and fight against it, because it makes me forget about God always seeing us and taking care of us, and that is wrong, I know."
"I wonder what my sin is!" cried Pickle. "I expect I've got a lot. Esther, do you think it's a sin to call people by nicknames? Old—I mean Uncle Robert makes a great fuss about it."
"I—I don't think it's perhaps the names exactly," said Esther, with a little hesitation—"at least not amongst ourselves. But to older people it doesn't seem quite respectful, and children ought to treat older people with respect. I think it says so in the Bible somewhere. I'm sure it means it often. You know that even Jesus was obedient, and 'subject to' Joseph and Mary, though He was God's Son all the time."
"We don't mean any harm," said Puck. "Crump used only to laugh, and call us cheeky little beggars."
"Well," said Esther, with a little gentle decision in her tone, "I don't think it sounds at all nice for little boys to speak of their father as Crump."
"Don't you, really? Do you mean you would call it a sin?"