Lady Mary shook her head sorrowfully.
“I am afraid, my darling, from what I hear that poor little Seppi’s days are numbered. But you know that his crippled life here could not be such a very happy one. He would feel his lameness more and more as he grew older, and the Loving Shepherd knows what is best and happiest for His lambs.”
The tears sprang to Squib’s eyes as he heard those words, and he pressed up to his mother’s side.
“Did you feel like that, mother,” he whispered, “about my little brother when he died?”
For that little brother whom he could not remember had always seemed to Squib to belong especially to himself, and his mother’s arms pressed him very close as she answered,—
“That is how I try to think of it now, darling. It was very hard to give him up at the time, but I am quite willing to believe that the Lord knows best, and by-and-by we shall understand all those things which seem so hard to bear now.”
“Yes,” answered Squib quickly and earnestly, “when the Lord comes to make all things new, and His Kingdom begins to come. Oh, how I wish it would come quickly!”
The mother looked earnestly into her child’s face and saw that the boy’s eyes were fixed intently upon the blue distance before them. Some new thought was struggling in his mind.
“Mother,” he said, “do you know that there is a little bit of this earth in glory now? I don’t quite know how to say it, but that’s just what it is. One little bit has been glorified and has its resurrection life already. Did you know?”
Lady Mary slightly shook her head.