Lucy saw that it was time to stop. The child's fear was gone for the present, or she could not have talked such nonsense. It was just as good, however, as the logic of most of those who worship the letter and call it the word.
"Why don't you speak, Miss Burton?" asked Mattie at length, no doubt conscience-stricken by her silence.
"Because you are talking nonsense now, Mattie."
"I thought that was it. But why should that make you not speak? for I need the more to hear sense."
"No, Mattie. Mr. Fuller says that when people begin to talk falsely, it is better to be quite silent, and let them say what they please, till the sound of their own nonsense makes them ashamed."
"As it did me, Miss Burton, as soon as you wouldn't speak any more."
"He says it does no good to contradict them then, for they are not only unworthy to hear the truth—that's not it—if they would hear it—but they are not fit to hear it. They are not in a mood to get any good from it; for they are holding the door open for the devil to come in, and truth can't get in at the same door with the devil."
"Oh, how dreadful! To think of me talking like Syne!" said Mattie. "I won't do it again, Miss Burton. Do tell me what Somebody said about God and the sparrows. Didn't he say something about counting their feathers? I think I remember Mr. Spelt reading that to me one night."
"He said something about counting your hairs, Mattie."
"Mine?"