"Well,"—she drew a long breath and settled back in her chair with a nestling movement that made the hard man of business feel a certain fatherly yearning towards her, and at last said slowly, "I can't quite explain to you how I have been led to it, but this thought has become very plain to me—that every real need of humanity must (if this world be the work of a perfect Being) have its certain fulfilment. Most people think the fulfilment should only be looked for in another and better world. I think it might, and ought, to come often in this, and that we alone are to blame that it does not."
"Wait! Let me more fully understand. You think every need—what kind of needs?"
"All kinds. Needs of body, mind, and soul."
"You think they can be fully gratified here?"
"I think they might be. I believe there is no reason, except our own ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, and greed, that keeps them from being gratified here and now."
"But child—that would be Heaven!"
"Very like it—yes. And why shouldn't we have Heaven here, sir? God made this world and pronounced it good. Would the Perfect One make a broken circle, a chain with missing links, a desire without its gratification? That would be incomplete workmanship. When either my body or my soul calls out for anything whatsoever, somewhere there is that thing awaiting the desire. Why relegate it to another world? There must be complete circles here, or this world is not good."
"But, my dear girl, these are rather abstruse questions for your little head."
"I did not think them out, Mr. Barrington. They grew out of—circumstances—and some one a good deal wiser than I made me understand them. But they grew to stay, and I can't get rid of them. That is one of the thoughts, ideas—what you will, and this is the other. A man can do little alone, but men can do anything working together in perfect sympathy."
"Oh, co-operation—yes!"